


Moondust

by REVVIII



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Don't copy to another site, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of it, M/M, Mutual Pining, Original Character(s), Past implied Harry/Merlin, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, also pining, but they play the villains, canon divergence I guess, do they happen? Idk probably not, events of TGC aren’t really mentioned, everyone has PTSD, only between Harry and Eggsy, switching POV, takes place after TSS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-09-26 03:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 153,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17133785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/REVVIII/pseuds/REVVIII
Summary: “And there's nothing that I can doExcept bury my love for youThe brightness of the sun, will give me just enoughTo bury my love, in the MoondustI long to hear your voice, but still I make the choiceTo bury my love, in the moondust”-- Jaymes Young, “Moondust”AU in which Harry is supposed to amnesia dart Eggsy after he fails the dog test. Harry doesn’t, and Eggsy remembers everything, and maybe living with the memory of requited but impossible love is harder than forgetting. Especially when you know you’ve hurt the one you love.This is a story of pain, and loss, and dealing with trauma, but it is also a story of love, hope, healing, and forgiveness, even if it takes a while to get there.Trigger warning for themes of PTSD, suicide, and depression.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a fic I wrote for fun based on an idea I had, but then some shit went down over the summer and it turned into a fic that I wrote for myself and my own resulting PTSD. There’s a lot of what I experienced written into this story, and I think because of that, the parts that do deal with the more graphic and ugly sides of PTSD get pretty real, so just a note for people who might find that kind of content triggering. I’ll be updating with a new chapter every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

**June 21 2014**

EGGSY

 

“It was a blank, Eggsy,” Harry said. Eggsy could hear the sigh mixed in with his voice, the disappointment, the anger, the utter defeat, as they stood in front of Harry’s taxidermized dog that Eggsy had until very recently thought his mentor had shot just to become a Kingsman, and Eggsy realized, rather arbitrarily, that other than the red bathrobe he’d worn over his hospital-issue clothing, this was the first time he’d seen Harry in something other than a suit or at least a button-down shirt. “It was a fucking blank. Remember Amelia?”

Harry’s pecs stood out _wonderfully_ in that jumper. “…Yeah.” Eggsy frowned, anger and confusion still prickling at his skin. A few seconds ago, he’d believed that his mentor, the man he loved and cherished and quite possibly wanted very much to fuck him, was someone sick and twisted enough to shoot his own dog. The next thing he knew was that he’d been thankfully mistaken, but also that he’d just lost what was probably the biggest opportunity of his life since he hadn’t been fucking smart enough to realize that it was a fucking blank. Put simply, it was a lot to take in within the span of a few moments.

“She didn’t drown,” Harry said, about Amelia, and disappointment and frustration lent a rasp to his voice. “She works in our tech department in Berlin; she’s fine. Limits must be tested. A Kingsman only condones the risking of a life to save another.”

A single thought flashed through Eggsy’s mind. _Lancelot._ Or at least, the man that would’ve been.

Anger flared again. “Like my dad saved your life even though your fuck-up cost his,” Eggsy bit out. “Or have you got him stuffed here and all?” The two very large emotional blows he’d just suffered and the terrible, terrible guilt he felt for letting Harry down lent more heat to his voice than he’d intended, and he regretted it as soon as he’d said it. He could see the hurt in Harry’s eyes already.

“Can’t you see that everything I’ve done has been about trying to repay him?” Harry’s voice was soft, almost wounded. It was like a hammer blow to Eggsy’s chest.

“I – Harry, no, I didn’t mean –”

“It’s quite alright,” Harry said quietly, though everything in his tone said that it wasn’t.

There was a pause, during which Eggsy felt the tattered remains of his heart fall apart completely.

“I’m sorry,” Eggsy said.

“Don’t be.”

“Harry, I really didn’t –”

“It’s alright, Eggsy.” More forcefully, this time.

There was another pause.

“So you’ll get JB, then?” Eggsy asked. It sounded almost desperate, his voice betraying the fact that his heart was hurting. He wondered if Harry could tell what he was doing – grasping at straws, thinking of anything that would let him stay even a little bit longer.

Harry heaved a light sigh. “Yes, I’ll get JB.”

A twist of irony, really, that. Candidates were supposed to pick a dog that was supposed to accompany them to success, all while knowing full well that if they didn’t make it into Kingsman it would be given to the person who proposed them. Something their mentor would keep to remind them of their candidate who failed.

“You’ll take good care of him, yeah?”

“The very best.”

Eggsy blinked hard several times. “Don’t walk him too long, he gets tired. Quick stroll around the block an’ that’s it. Don’t give ‘im too many treats, neither, since it’s hard for ‘im to walk it off. And let him sleep in your bed.” He pointed a finger at Harry, mock-threatening. “You’d better let him sleep in your bed.”

Harry’s eyes softened; they were a warm, liquid amber in the slanted light that came through the shutters. “Of course.”

Eggsy nodded. His nose was starting to burn.

_Is that it? Is that all we’re going to say to each other, here at the end?_

Eggsy bit his lip. “Well, I suppose I better be going, then,” he said, hesitant, and felt a pang in his gut at his own words. “I mean, since I’m not gonna be a Kingsman anymore and you’ve got your stuff with Valentine to figure out, so I should probably get out of your way.”

Harry took a step forward. “I wouldn’t mind if you…stayed a bit longer,” he said, and his voice was soft, cautious, almost…questioning?

 _Yes_ , Eggsy almost said, almost spitting out the word immediately, because here was Harry telling him he wanted him to stay even though he wasn’t a Kingsman and wasn’t ever going to be, even though this was the end of it for him, even though there was absolutely no way this man would ever love him back, even though the world itself was waiting to be saved.

He almost said it, because within the next twenty-four hours Harry himself would find him and shoot an amnesia dart into his neck without him noticing. Nifty protocol that he’d been informed of right after he’d failed the last test and been kicked out, all thanks to a rejected candidate some time ago who turned all of the Kingsman secrets that he knew over to some American who had captured him almost as soon as he had left HQ. Sometime within the next twenty-four hours he would forget all about Kingsman, all about his now-dear friend Roxy, all about grumpy Merlin.

All about Harry.

He would forget Harry and how much he loved him, and it was so tempting to just stay a few minutes more, to love him a few minutes longer.

 _Yes_ , Eggsy almost said.

“I…I shouldn’t,” Eggsy said instead, and felt a painful little burst of pride at his self-restraint. Something Harry had taught him, actually. _A gentleman is always in control of himself._

“Ah,” Harry said, and stepped back. It almost looked as if he were thinking the same thing, and regretting teaching Eggsy that particular piece of information. Eggsy regretted it too. “Well, if you have somewhere to be –”

“I don’t,” Eggsy blurted out, and immediately bit his tongue at how desperate he sounded. “It’s just that goodbyes are the hardest part, aren’t they? And this is gonna be one helluva goodbye.” _God,_ he loved Harry so much that his chest hurt just thinking about leaving him, which was precisely why he needed to leave now and just get it over with.

_A Kingsman always does what’s right, even if it’s hard._

“Ah,” Harry said again. There was a small, sad smile that turned the corners of his lips. “Indeed, it will be.”

Eggsy nodded. “Right.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “Well, um, goodbye, then.”

“‘Goodbye?’ Is that all?” Harry asked quietly, and there was that same small, sad smile still on his face.

“Is that all? Yeah, I suppose,” Eggsy said, and he was surprised at how in-control he had managed to get his voice to sound despite the hurricane raging in his chest. “Not much else to say, is there? I mean, besides thanks for everythin’, but I think you already knew that. And sorry for not making Kingsman.” His heart twinged painfully again. “I’m really, really sorry about that. But I guess you knew I was shit at job interviews too, eh?”

“ _Eggsy_.” It was soft, fond, with just a hint of exasperated laughter, and that was what did it.

“I love you, Harry,” Eggsy blurted out, and he knew it was clichéd to be proclaiming his love at the end of everything but he said it with all his heart. He felt his throat constricting, felt a helpless laugh bubbling out at the uncharacteristically stunned look on Harry’s face, felt his eyes burning with unshed tears. He hadn’t even known he was that far gone until he blinked and his vision blurred. “I love you so fucking much, ever since you bailed me outta jail, ever since I saw you fightin’ in that pub, ever since I first got to the tailor shop and saw you sittin’ like a fuckin’ _sex bomb_ on that sofa with your drink an’ all. You absolute fuckin’ wanker, Harry.” He laughed again, shakily. “Just…just thought I’d tell you before I…forget.”

Harry, for once, was at a complete loss for words.

“I…I don’t expect anything,” Eggsy said, and his chest physically hurt. “I mean, I can’t, really, knowing how things are gonna have to go. I just needed to tell you. Guess it won’t be awkward for either of us either, will it, since I’ll just forget everything and we’ll never see each other again. Sucks for me the most though, since I’ll have given my whole heart to you and no amount of amnesia darting is gonna put it back.” The last part came out sounding broken. His voice shook and he swallowed hard. “I really should be going. I should just say the fucking goodbye and get on with it but I just can’t bring myself to leave.”

“Oh, Eggsy.” It was pained now, almost whispered. Harry took a small step forward. There was a crack in the carefully-maintained composure of his face.

Eggsy blinked rapidly a few times, his eyes stinging. “I don’t actually think you’re a freak even though stuffing your dog is still a little weird,” he said, trying for another laugh but hearing only a choked sob instead, because this was the man he was going to forget. The man who got him out of jail, who decided to trust him that first time at the pub, who introduced him to Kingsman, who gave him a second chance at life. The man who was always impeccably dressed with ramrod posture, who always had his hair neatly parted in a way that made Eggsy want to run his fingers through it and tear apart that composure, who always, _always_ took tea over coffee, if he could. The man who kept a taxidermized dog and butterfly collections in the loo. The man who called his boss antiquated and unevolved to his face (with respect). The man who owned a fuzzy red bathrobe.

“I fucking miss you already,” Eggsy said, and then he was in Harry’s arms without knowing if it was him who crossed the room to Harry or Harry who crossed the room to him. He buried his face in the man’s shoulder, leaving tear-stains in his jumper. He inhaled his scent, the bite of his cologne and the spice of his aftershave, and resolved never to forget it, amnesia dart or not, committed to memory what it felt like to press their bodies together, to feel Harry’s heartbeat against his own.

 _Do it tonight, if you have to, but stay with me. Let me fall asleep with you first,_ Eggsy almost said, but he couldn’t. It was so tempting, that one last request, to have Harry be the last thing he knew at night before he fell asleep and woke to a new dawn. A bleaker dawn. A dawn without the man he loved more than life. But it wouldn’t be fair to Harry. Because Harry cared about him, right? Harry loved him, in his own way, and Eggsy knew this would be hard for him, and Eggsy couldn’t bear to hurt him.

“Darling,” Harry murmured, and Eggsy’s heart shattered at the word, at the tenderness in his voice, and at the knowledge that after he left he would never be able to hear that voice again. After he left, he wouldn’t even know it. He drew back to look at Harry, to see those kind brown eyes, and then Harry kissed him.

“Harry,” Eggsy whispered against Harry’s lips, feeling himself melting against his touch. Harry’s lips were soft and wonderfully sweet and Eggsy yielded to his tongue, his mouth opening for Harry to push inside. He bared himself to the older man, allowed Harry to feel him, know him as completely as he could in the last few moments they had together. Harry mouthed at him gently, one arm around Eggsy’s waist, the other running lightly up and down his side, sending shivers up his spine and swords into his heart. And as for the kiss itself – well.

It was gentle, bittersweet, slightly salty from the tears that Eggsy didn’t even notice had slid from his eyes, and tasted wonderful and like millions of things that could never be.

 

 

 

The amnesia dart never came, and he remembered everything he was supposed to forget.

He didn’t know which was crueler.

 

 

 

 

 

 **June** **21** **2016, two years later**

HARRY

 

“Galahad, Percival wants us both in the briefing room.”

Harry looked up from the stack of paperwork he was working on to see Roxy poking her head in through the door, looking slightly apologetic.

“Sorry about barging in like this, you didn’t answer when I knocked.”

Harry blinked, reaching for the glasses he’d taken off for lunch break. “Ah. My apologies, I must have been preoccupied. Thank you, Lancelot.” He knew preoccupation and distraction were unacceptable excuses for a Kingsman agent. Roxy knew as well. But she wouldn’t blame him, not today. She’d been close to Eggsy too, Harry remembered. She’d loved him just as he did. Just as everyone else did. He could hear the hollowness of his absence in her voice, see the emptiness of his loss in her eyes. She knew this was two years to the last time Harry had seen him, had felt the warmth of his touch, heard the clear melody of his voice, and she knew it was like death to him.

“I…I know today is hard for you, Harry,” she murmured. Switching away from formalities; this was a personal conversation. She knew that today marked two years to the day since Harry had last seen Eggsy, which meant she also knew that it was also two years to the day that Harry had killed fifty-two people in a church in Kentucky because an invisible wave from a SIM card made him want to.

“And I know Percival wouldn’t be asking for you unless he really needed to,” Roxy continued.

Percival had known. They all had known. Harry had never told them what the depth of his feelings for Eggsy had been, but it was hard to keep a secret from a spy. It was hard to pretend that PTSD wasn’t something that bothered him when everyone else around him had it too.

“But this is important – really important. He thinks we have a new lead on Garlon.”

At that, Harry straightened. Garlon was the invisible knight from the Arthurian legends. It was their code name for a new target they’d been trying to apprehend for the past year and a half, linked to a number of assassinations all around Europe. There was no apparent pattern to the assassinations, the only thing linking them being that all of the victims had been wealthy, and that they had all been killed with a single gunshot wound entering either on their left cheek, exiting at a slight angle out the back of their heads to sever the brainstem, or entering at the brainstem itself. A precision that Harry would’ve linked to Kingsman if he didn’t know better.

“A new mission?” Harry asked.

Roxy nodded. “He said that there’s something else we need to know too, though not directly related to the mission. He wants to tell us in person.”

“Ah. Thank you,” Harry said. He tapped the corner of his glasses to switch them on and spoke to both Roxy and Percival. “I will be in the dining room shortly.”

Roxy nodded and withdrew, the door clicking shut gently behind her. Harry breathed out a long sigh, adjusting his glasses as he stood and headed for the dining room. His fingers brushed against the scar at his temple, a mark of Valentine’s bullet from just outside the South Glade Mission Church in Kentucky, USA.

He let out a soft hiss as the touch sparked a barrage of memories; the sound of gunshots, of people screaming, the smell of over fifty people’s blood filling the air. Staring down the barrel of a gun, beyond which were two flat, cold dark eyes that snapped shut just before the trigger was pulled.

It wasn’t enough to be a flashback, no. Harry knew what those felt like, and he knew how to recognize his warnings signs, knew how to pull himself out of it when he felt the memories starting to drag him back down and overwhelm him. Repression wasn’t exactly a healthy coping mechanism, something Merlin and the Kingsman therapist he’d been working with had reminded him of too many times to bother counting, but sometimes it was something that had to be done simply due to the nature of his job. He couldn’t be expected to be an efficient field agent if he let his mind control him.

Still, though the guilt and the fear of the knowledge of how lethal he really could be was something that he still had trouble with sometimes, the initial flash of pain was a distant memory now. _That_ part had never bothered him; he’d been shot multiple times already during his time at Kingsman, and he’d accepted that death could come any day. But the occasional headaches that still sprung up from his fractured skull allowed him to understand a little bit of the recurring pains Percival still went through; the man had also been shot when he had taken out Valentine during V-Day two years ago. Just after his successful completion of the mission, Charlie Hesketh, who had not been killed by the implant explosion due to the damage Percival’s electric signet ring had done to it, had woken up and put a bullet through the man’s throat. With Merlin transferring to field work, Percival had been able to retire from it and take Merlin’s place as tech wizard.

The man himself looked up as Harry pushed open the door, an eyebrow raised. “Late, as usual.” But there was no edge to his voice. Harry sat down next to Roxy and made no comment.

Percival tapped on his clipboard and turned to the screen, on which a map of the world with red circles labelling various cities with different dates was projected. “Kingsman has been following a series of murders around the world for the past decade. They have all been characterized by lasting anywhere from six months to three years in a general area, and then stopping with no apparent cause. Within one area the M.O. is always the same and it always involves removing something of monetary worth from the victim’s possession, but across locations and time the killings have varied in style. We have assigned various agents to investigate the murders, but four years ago they stopped completely, and we had no leads nor anything to suggest that they would continue, so we dropped the case in favor of other, more pressing situations.

“But if you recall, starting in November of last year, the murders began again, some in other parts of Europe but mostly in the general London area.” The map zoomed into the red circle marking London, and a list of profiles appeared onscreen. “All wealthy and influential individuals or families, with various objects of worth as well as contents of the safe removed from the house, bank accounts emptied the same day of the murder by persons unknown, though it was done in a fashion that indicates the perpetrator had access to the family’s security and login information. The style of murder is, once again, the same within this location; a single gunshot wound to the head and exiting out the back of the neck, which medical analysis says likely causes instantaneous death due to severing of the brainstem. The single gunshot indicates an extreme skill and near perfect kill rate, and points to one individual killer in this area, who we have named Garlon. Once again, just like the murders we started to follow ten years ago.

“At that time and up until now, we believed that it each of the sprees was committed by an independent individual due to the similarity of style in which all of the victims were killed in one area but lack of similarity across location and time. In other words, we believed that they may have each been a separate mass murderer potentially just drawing inspiration from the previous, and news coverage indeed labelled them as such. Recent intelligence, however, has suggested that these individuals are connected in some way.”

“So it’s a network,” Roxy said. Her forehead was furrowed in a frown.

“Precisely. We still believe there is only one person responsible for the murders since November, but that they are part of a larger network that was involved in the past sprees. Furthermore, the victims have been increasingly politically significant, with people in more positions of power being targeted.” Percival tapped his clipboard, and the screen changed once again. “These are the most recent victims; a family of three. They were killed five days ago in their home in Kensington. Same M.O. as with the others. And then, two days ago, one of our agents previously posted on this case was shot just outside the Kensington Gardens. Merlin.”

Harry felt like the breath had been struck out of him. Beside him, he saw Roxy stiffen, her hands tightening on the armrests until her knuckles turned white.

“Dead?” Harry asked. His voice rasped ever so slightly.

Percival shook his head, and Harry let out a soft breath. “Fortunately not, but it was close. Same style as the other victims, except that this must of course have been in retaliation rather than because Garlon was actively seeking him out for the purpose of obtaining money. Still, he was remarkably accurate and it was only due to sheer luck that Merlin survived; a car crashed into the street lamp near where we think Garlon was situated based on the bullet’s angle of entry, and it happened at the same time he fired. The bullet missed Merlin’s spinal cord by several millimeters and didn't actually hit the brain itself at all, or any essential part of his nervous system. Thanks to the alpha gel Statesman provided us with after Kentucky, he is expected to make a full and fast recovery. But I digress.

“Merlin woke two hours ago and said that he believes he saw the person who shot him. Not in great detail, mind; he only saw the killer as he was fleeing the scene, and he was masked. However, he was bleeding lightly from his shoulder where the lamp had struck him, and his jacket was torn. It revealed a burn mark in the same shape and location as was described by a witness to one of the 2001 Berlin murders. A description that has never been released to the public for any, ah, sick _fans_ to copy.”

Harry drew a sharp breath. “And we’ve confirmed that they’re not the same person?”

Percival shook his head. “It’s impossible. The Berlin killer was tall, estimated to be one-hundred ninety centimeters based on a witness. Merlin insists that the man who shot him was little more than one-seventy, and of stronger build. His glasses had been knocked off by the impact of the bullet, so there is no footage to verify what he said; however, the case has been reopened and has now been passed onto you two. I have just sent you both a file containing all of our most recent intelligence, as well as projected targets and locations based on the data we already have.

“Your mission is to extrapolate his movements and to find him; right now, we believe that the best chance we have at apprehending Garlon is during his next mission. Which is, funnily enough, probably to finish off wherever Merlin came from. You will take him alive. _Alive_ , you two,” Percival said severely, with a warning glance in their direction. “You will disarm him, scan for trackers or bugs, and bring him here to HQ where he will be interrogated. This will not be easy. Even if Garlon is not sure if Merlin was acting alone, he will operate under the assumption that he was not. Therefore, we must assume that this network will act as if they know that we know we are being followed and will take measures necessary to avoid being detected. Is this clear?”

“Perfectly, sir,” Roxy said, and her words were crisp in a way they only were when she was angry.

“Understood,” Harry said.

“Good.” Percival tapped the clipboard, and the screen changed to a map of London. “Merlin was shot here,” he said, pointing to a spot just north of Kensington. “Doesn’t tell us much without having further intelligence, but if we assume that the attack was retaliation because Garlon knows he was being followed, we can assume that he will remain in this general area to ascertain if Merlin was acting alone, and if he finds not, to eliminate the rest of Merlin’s organization. Namely, Kingsman.”

Roxy’s breath left her in a soft hiss through clenched teeth. “How would he know he was being followed? We haven’t sent anyone out on explicit missions – hell, we only just officially reopened the case! There was nothing, no one, _to_ follow!”

Percival shook his head. “We’ve only officially reopened the case because of what happened to Merlin, but Merlin had his suspicions earlier. He went to Kensington to unofficially investigate the most recent murder, and I can only assume Garlon had lingered in the area in case anyone did just that.”

Roxy stood; her chair scraped the hardwood. “When do we leave?”

Harry shared her sentiments; he looked to Percival expectantly.

“You leave in the morning,” Percival said. “I don’t need to emphasize the danger of this situation, or the importance of finding Garlon before he is able to escape and disappear or before his superiors deem the situation too risky and dispose of him before we are able to get any information out of him.” He pulled out two files from behind the clipboard and handed them to the other two agents. “Let me know if you have any questions. I’ll expect you to arrive at the address listed in the file by 0700 tomorrow.”

 

 

 

Harry woke a few minutes before 0500 when his alarm was set to go off, his heart pounding. Nightmares, once again. They usually weren’t clear and detailed anymore the way they had been up until six months ago, when he could still see the light blonde highlights in that woman’s hair before he’d blown her head off, when he could still see the fine grains in the wood of the church pews. No, they were fuzzy now, if he had them at all, and when he woke, instead of an overwhelming panic he was only left with a nagging guilt and a vague memory of red on his hands.

He swallowed, turned his alarm off before it could ring, and sat up.

They usually weren’t clear and explicit anymore the way they had been up until six months ago, but tonight he’d dreamed that it had been Merlin in that church. That it had been Eggsy. That he had blown their heads off and killed them.

Merlin had been shot just outside the Kensington Gardens. Almost on his front steps. Harry couldn’t help but think that it should have been him instead.

At the foot of the bed, JB stretched and yawned before looking at Harry and blinking sleepily. Harry reached over and scratched his ears, and the pug promptly put his head back down and went back to sleep.

It was less than a five-minute drive from his flat to the address listed in the file. Harry could leave in a full two hours and still make it in time, but he planned to leave forty-five minutes early to give himself time to bring JB to HQ, where Jay Stephens – codename Gawain – had agreed to pick him up to take care of him for the duration of the mission.

He stood, his joints cracking, and after changing into his suit and putting on his glasses headed to the kitchen for a light breakfast; oatmeal with a little bit of honey and sliced strawberries, and a cup of coffee. Coffee wasn’t something he liked to rely on (what was he supposed to do for long field missions without a convenient shop nearby?), but he wasn’t as young as he used to be and it was no longer as easy to function on only a few hours of sleep that were interrupted every few hours by nightmares.

Harry put on the kettle and washed the last few strawberries in his fridge; once he was done slicing them and putting the dry oatmeal in a bowl, he turned on his glasses. There was a small light in the corner of his vision, orange to indicate that he was now transmitting but that Percival wasn’t yet awake to turn on his computer and receive the transmission. A few moments after the water began boiling and Harry had started his cup of coffee, a message from Roxy popped up in green in front of his eyes.

<You up?>

Harry typed back a quick message.

<Yes.>

A moment later he heard Roxy’s voice in his ear.

“How are you?”

A wry smile curved the corners of Harry’s mouth as he poured the boiling water over his oatmeal and added the strawberries and honey. “You know you don’t need to ask me every morning anymore.” But there was only fondness in his voice, only gratitude for the weeks, the months after the church, that she’d spent texting him every morning, checking to see how he was doing after a night of migraines and nightmares that wouldn’t go away. “I’m fine, thank you for asking.”

“Good.” Roxy’s voice softened. In the background, Harry could hear her poodle whining gently. “I know you said you’ve been getting better, but I just wanted to check in again. Y’know, because of Merlin.” _And the nightmares that came back_. That part was unspoken. It almost always was, now; she knew how much he hated talking about them, even if sometimes he appreciated her checking in. (A wonderful world of contradiction, trauma was.)

“Ah. Yes, well, he’s alive, and that’s an enormous comfort, but it would make me feel much better knowing that the person who shot him was dead, or at the very least in Kingsman custody,” he said, nearly burning himself on his coffee.

“Me too.”

There was a comfortable pause, during which Harry ate his breakfast and JB pattered sleepily into the kitchen, having decided the bedroom upstairs too lonely on his own. “What are you planning on doing with Charlemagne?” he asked, once he’d finished his oatmeal and coffee put the bowl, spoon, and mug into the dishwasher.

“Jay said he’d take him,” Roxy answered. It sounded like she was eating the last of her apple. “I’m about to take him over to HQ, actually.”

Harry, who had been in the process of fastening JB’s leash to his collar for his morning walk, stopped in surprise; the dog, who was being woken up much earlier than he was used to, simply yawned and sat down. “Jay’s taking him too? The man must really love dogs.”

Roxy laughed; Harry could hear the sink going in the background, and the eager whining of Charlemagne as he waited to be taken outside. “You know he does. When he told me that he was taking JB as well I offered to find someone else; two dogs are a lot for a guy who’s just getting back into the field.”

“Mm.”

“But he insisted.” Harry could almost hear her amused shrug. “He said it’d be good for him. Anyway, the cab’s arriving in a few minutes and I still need to take Charles around the block before I drop him off at HQ, so I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Right. See you.”

JB was walking more slowly than usual today, Harry noted with no small bit of amusement, no doubt due to the fact that he was awake two hours earlier than he was accustomed to. He took him around the block ( _quick stroll around the block an’ that’s it_ , Eggsy had said, and the memory of his voice echoed in Harry’s thoughts) to let him do his business before returning to his flat and fetching the duffel bag containing JB’s toys, treats, food and water dishes, enough kibble for a week, and his folded-up dog bed.

As if Jay would let the dogs sleep anywhere but on his own bed with him, Harry thought with a small smile.

The cab arrived in front of Harry’s flat at 0618 and Harry and JB reached the tailor shop at 0629. The hyperloop took another few minutes to reach HQ, where Jay was already waiting. The other man waved eagerly as they approached.

“Good morning,” Jay said cheerfully. He knelt to greet the pug, long brown hair flopping forwards into his eyes, a grin stretched across his face. “Hey, buddy! Ooh, what a good boy,” he cooed, scratching under the pug’s chin as he wiggled and snuffled eagerly at Jay’s hands. “Oh, man, am I going to have so much fun with you! What a good boy!”

“I appreciate you taking him,” Harry said. He set the duffel on the ground. “Everything you need is in there, but if he runs out of kibble –”

“I know where to find it,” Jay said with a grin. “Only the best brands for JB, eh?”

“It’s nothing less than he deserves.” Harry chuckled, kneeling to ruffle the pug’s ears and bury his nose in the short, soft brown fur. “You be good this week, alright? You be a good boy for me.” _For me and Eggsy_ , he thought. “I’ll be back soon to pick you up.”

Jay laughed. “He’ll be fine. He looks like he’s pretty well trained, and I’d be a poor excuse of a Kingsman if I couldn’t even handle a twenty pound dog.”

“On his own? Yes, that would really be quite pathetic. But I hear you’re taking Roxy’s as well this week?”

Jay gave Harry a playful salute and wink. “You bet I am! She hasn’t gotten here yet, but she should be soon. That dog of hers really likes to run, and I need to get back into shape. My physical therapist said it should be fine on my knee by now as long as I don’t go over a few miles, so don’t worry about me. Just make sure everything goes smoothly, alright?”

“You know you don’t need to worry about me,” Harry said, standing with a small smile.

“Who said anything about you? Absolute narcissist,” Jay grinned. “Nah, I know you’ll be okay. You know what you’re doing.” And then, abruptly, he was serious, his eyes almost sad. “Just…get him for us, will you?”

 _Merlin_ , Harry thought.

“I will,” he promised.

A smile split Jay’s face, and he was back to his usual cheerful self. “Good. Well, you’d better head off, gramps, I won’t want to make you late. Good luck.”

 

 

 

Harry arrived at the address at 0652, and Roxy arrived two minutes later. It was a house with its main entrance designed to look like a normal key-locked door, just like all Kingsman buildings, but hidden in the key was a biometric scanner currently calibrated to Harry and Roxy’s fingerprints that activated when it was inserted into the lock.

Percival greeted them through their glasses once both of them had let themselves in. No new intel had come in, though he informed them that Merlin had put in a request to be added to the case as soon as Medical deemed him fit to be discharged, which they estimated to be in about a week. Because of the lack of new information, the focus of their mission, for now, would be to gather intelligence.

The pub down the road, always a good center of gossip, seemed as good a place as any to start.

 

 

 

<The man by the window, black blazer. On the right when you walk in.> The messaged flitted across his vision in the familiar green of Kingsman tech.

It was around nine in the evening, and Roxy had already been inside for twenty minutes by the time Harry entered, scouting out the environment for potential new sources of information. Feeling that two people both new to the area and wearing the exact same glasses might have been slightly suspicious, Roxy had opted instead for the contacts Merlin had developed recently, and was wearing a tight navy-blue dress and heels to blend in with the rest of the mostly-partying crowd.

Harry saw the man in question almost immediately; it was a Wednesday night but the pub was fairly crowded, but it was unmistakable who Roxy was referring to. He muttered a quick response. “Comes off as a bit too formal for a pub, doesn’t he? Tells us that he doesn’t seem to mind standing out. How long as he been there?”

<Not sure> Roxy typed. Harry could hear her side of the conversation she was having in the background. <He was here before me and has been glancing in my direction ever since I walked in.>

“Mm. Where are you?”

“Chatting with the bartender,” Percival answered. “Middle of the bar. She’s working on getting something out of him.” A pause. “Think this guy has any potential?”

“Not sure.” <I see you.> Harry stepped up to the bar – there were only a few seats still open, one of which was near Roxy – and ordered a martini. Gin, of course, and dry. He glanced around as he took a sip from the glass, his gaze sweeping over the man by the window who was nursing his own drink and staring, almost completely unabashedly, back at him.

<Yes> he amended. He turned back around; the angle of his seat enabled him to keep the man in his peripheral vision, but he could feel the man’s searing gaze on him just as well as he could see it. The bartender, meanwhile, had turned to serving other customers, and Roxy seemed satisfied.

“He comes here often,” Roxy said quietly into her drink. “At least, often since he started coming at all. Always orders a Sazerac. They’re quite good, mind you,” she added, with a glance down at her glass. “You should try one sometime. Assuming Pete’s memory is accurate, this guy supposedly showed up around here five days ago and seems to be a newcomer to the entire area.”

Five days ago. Two days before Merlin was shot, the day after the murders Merlin had been investigating took place, and the same day he had arrived to investigate them.

“He always sits alone,” Roxy continued. “And always –” She broke off.

“Mind if I buy you another drink?” Harry heard to his right; he glanced over to see a well-dressed, handsome, but clearly very entitled young man leaning in beside Roxy.

“No thanks,” Roxy said coolly. Harry could hear the irritation in her voice at having been interrupted.

The man tilted his head, shifting his weight onto the elbow he had on the counter with all the suave arrogance of a rich, privileged, straight white young man. (That same arrogance that most of the older Kingsman agents possessed too, from Harry’s experience.) “Why not? I’m hot, you’re hot, I think we could hit it off. Get you a little tipsy, head back to my place…”

From behind the man’s head, Harry could see Roxy give the man a once-over. “Hm. Not my type, sorry.” She sounded utterly indifferent.

“You sure? There are _so_ may things I’d want to do to you, and I know you’d like it.”

Roxy raised an eyebrow.

“He’s going to have his ass handed to him in about forty seconds,” Percival muttered in Harry’s ear, with no small amount of amusement.

<I’d go for thirty.>

“Loser owes fifty pounds.”

<Deal.>

“Ah, c’mon, give a guy a chance,” the man said, with what he clearly believed to be a winning smile.

“I am,” Roxy said, leaning forward. “I’m giving you a chance to take no for an answer, before I text your wife and say that you’re cheating on her.” She held up his phone, which she had picked out of his pocket as he’d leaned into her space, and gave him a bright smile.

The man seemed stunned. “I – what –”

“I’ll give you a tip here,” Roxy said, still smiling. “Take it easy on the spray-tan. Especially when you still have your wedding band on when you’re spraying. It makes it a bit obvious if your whole hand is orange except for a little ring around one finger.” She drew back. “On second thought, I’ll text her anyway,” she mused. “Leanne Roberts, is it? Redhead, pretty…another tip. You should really have a password on your phone.”

“You wouldn’t. Give it back,” the man hissed.

Roxy held out the phone with a shrug. “Doesn’t matter. I have her name, I know what she looks like based on her contact photo. She’ll be easy enough to find on Facebook.”

“Fuck you,” the man snarled, recoiling and walking away. “You’re ugly anyway.”

Roxy just laughed.

“Thirty-seven seconds,” Percival said, and Harry could hear the smile in his voice. “Fifty pounds, Harry.”

<Fine, fine.>

“It would’ve been faster if I could’ve knocked him out,” Roxy mused. “It’s probably not a good idea to start drawing attention to ourselves, though. Percival, you got her Facebook?”

“It’s up on my screen. Fake profile created for you, too.”

“Great. Tell her that her husband just tried to cheat on her with me.” She sighed and called for a refill, which she immediately began work on. “Intelligence missions suck when you’re a lesbian at a bar full of men. Now, where was I?”

<The guy sits alone?> Harry typed. The man was still watching them, but unlike Roxy, whose words were sufficiently hidden by a curtain of hair, Harry was in full view.

“Ah. Right. He sits alone, and always just watches. Never talks to anyone and usually, apparently, people don’t really mind him, although I’ve seen a few give him weird looks for wearing an almost-suit in a pub.”

<He stands out, and he knows it> Harry sent. <Points to arrogance to me, as if he knows who we are and isn’t afraid of letting us know that.>

“I’ve been running your visual feeds through facial recognition,” Percival said. “This guy comes up as a Patrick Weber, aged thirty-seven. He lived in Germany for most of his early life, but moved to Bristol at twenty-two. Not extraordinarily educated, at least in the traditional sense, but smart. He knows how to think. Extensive and impressive military background, top of the class in weapons scores and one hundred thirty-seven confirmed kills from his time in the service – which was only six months, mind you. He definitely has the skills to do what Garlon did.”

Roxy had finished her drink already, and the glass clinked on the polished wooden counter as she set it down. “We should bug him, yeah? It might be a lead.”

 _<_ This whole place, too> Harry typed.

“Already on it.” Roxy paused. “You got Weber?”

 _<_ Yes _._ > The man was still watching Harry, and when Harry glanced back at him, he held his gaze.

Right.

Harry finished the last of his martini, stood, and headed meanderingly for Patrick Weber’s table. The man didn’t flinch as he approached; he didn’t so much as even blink.

“Busy night, is it?” Harry asked, conversational.

“Milder than usual,” Weber responded.

“Really? I would’ve expected people to be busy on a Wednesday.”

The smallest of smiles curled Weber’s lip. “You’re not from around here.”

Harry echoed the smile. “No, I’m afraid not. Not recently, at least.” He gestured at the chair on the other end of the table from where the other man was seated. “May I?”

“Be my guest.”

“Thank you.” Harry sat, noting the way Weber watched his every move. “I’m Jon, by the way.”

“Patrick.”

“Patrick,” Harry echoed. _He’s either confident enough or stupid enough not to lie about his identity._ “I don’t suppose we know each other, do we?”

The other man frowned, tilting his head. The movement looked almost vicious, somehow. Hawk-like. Harry was very uncomfortably aware that the man still hadn’t blinked. “We haven’t met, no. Why?”

“Ah. My mistake, then,” Harry said easily. It didn’t escape his notice that the man dodged the question; knowing who someone was and meeting them were two completely different things that masqueraded as the same under a quick, thoughtless glance. “I saw you watching me when I was seated over there at the bar and thought you might have been a face I’d forgotten. I used to live here, back in the day, but that was – oh, fifteen, twenty years ago. I hope you’ll forgive me for the error.”

“Of course.” Weber finally, _finally_ blinked, and took a sip of his beer.

Harry watched him, allowing a pleasant expression to rest easily on his face. “So what about you? You seem familiar with the workings of this place.”

A short laugh. “I’ve been here before, yes.”

“I see. You like people-watching?” Harry glanced back over his shoulder. “I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve been keeping to yourself the whole time I’ve been here.”

“As have you, save for this conversation. You’re not here for just some friendly conversation, are you?”

 _He’s sharp._ “Why else?” Harry asked, feigning innocence.

Weber shrugged, taking a long drink. Harry watched his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. “Oh, I don’t know, it wouldn’t happen to be to discuss the death of a friend, now, would it?” he asked, when he’d set his glass down.

There was something very pointed and direct about the question that made Harry think it was very deliberately aimed at a Kingsman agent.

“Shit. He knows,” Percival hissed in his ear.

Harry tilted his head and frowned, even as he felt his gut clench. “Sorry?”

“Oh, surely you must know? A man was shot a little less than a week ago. He was supposedly poking around where he didn’t belong, getting too close to the murder of a family a few days before he arrived, and he had to be silenced. I thought you must know him.”

_If this is Garlon, if this is the man who shot Merlin…_

“No, sorry, I hadn’t heard about this. Who was it? Have they caught the person who did it?”

A smile spread itself across Weber’s face. “My apologies. I must have the wrong person as well.” He stood and gave Harry a nod. “I’ll see you around.”

 

 

 

Roxy took off her heels and tossed them unceremoniously across the room as soon as she stepped into the house. “Don’t worry, I’ve checked for bugs. But _God_ , those are painful. Fuck the patriarchy. You know those movies where the woman is supposed to be all badass and everything and can take down a dozen bad guys in heels without a problem? _Totally_ unrealistic.”

“As if that’s not something you do on a regular basis,” Harry said with a wry smile. He’d left the pub roughly an hour before Roxy had; even though Weber had left, they didn’t want to take any chances being seen together. He’d taken the time to pick up dinner from a local restaurant.

Roxy huffed. “Alright, yes, but they never talk about how much her feet hurt afterwards. I can’t imagine what all those actresses have to go through just because the director – who is _always_ a _man_ – wants her to look a certain way.” She sat down on the couch opposite Harry in the living room and stripped off her dress. “So the pub’s bugged. Got some audio and some visual in there – Percival, anything yet?” she asked, wriggling her way into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt.

“No.” Since they were at an official Kingsman location and had checked themselves and the building for bugs, they could safely talk face-to-face, and Percival’s head floated eerily over the triangle projection site in the coffee table. “Not from your bugs, at least, and I’m working on calibrating them to alert us when they detect Weber’s face or voice. Harry, nice job; he doesn’t seem to have noticed it on the back of his trousers yet, but I’m also not getting anything that seems to be worth anything, audio _or_ location.”

“Not even location? Where is he now?”

Percival gave them a wry smile. “Grocery shopping.”

“Well, I suppose everyone’s gotta eat,” Roxy mused. “Including me. I’m starved, is this Thai?”

“Yes, and quite good, too,” Harry said, thoroughly impressed with the quality of the shrimp he was currently eating.

Roxy helped herself to a generous amount of the noodles and rice and sat back against the couch, looking thoughtful. “Well, it’s only been a few hours, something could turn up yet. We’ll keep our eyes open, yeah?”

Percival nodded. He told them to be careful, to stay inconspicuous, and that he would let them know if anything came up, and then signed off.

There was hope, Harry thought, when a message from Percival came up in their glasses two hours later telling them that Patrick Weber seemed to have retired for the night, at an address not too far away, and that he had been talking to at least three other people, two of whose profiles revealed an extensive military background when pulled up through voice recognition: Andy Atkins and Jean Loussac. The last person must have been contacted by phone; the bug couldn’t pick up a voice. Still, there was hope that things would go well. There was hope that they’d find Garlon and his network soon, and Harry could bring justice to the man who had shot Merlin.

 

 

 

Things did not go well.

“Leanne Roberts has no idea what the fuck we’re talking about,” Percival said. “And it checks out; everything that I saw on her Facebook yesterday – pictures of her engagement to that guy, pictures of them with their kids – has disappeared. Turns out she’s gay.”

“Fuck,” Roxy spat.

“And I went ahead and reviewed the footage from yesterday, too, to look at facial recognition. Any guesses as to who the guy was who was hitting on you?”

“Shit,” Harry snarled. “Loussac or Atkins.”

Percival sounded grim. “Right-on. It was Atkins, and he probably set the whole thing up. Hacked her Facebook to make it seem legitimate, somehow found her contact information and added it to a phone that he’ll eventually dispose of, everything. Are you sure he didn’t slip anything into your drink? Or get any bugs onto your clothes?”

“We checked,” Roxy said. “Thoroughly. There was nothing there. I’ll go check again if you think we need to, but I doubt we’ll find anything external.”

“This is a goddamn mess,” Percival said.

Harry agreed.

After that initial lead, everything grew stagnant. It had almost immediately become very apparent that Weber was the man they were looking for – or at least was someone who had information on the man they were looking for – not only because of the unexpected turn of events with Atkins, but also when Weber discovered and discarded the bug almost casually, as if he had known the whole time that he had been bugged and didn’t care. (“I was exceedingly careful when I bugged him,” Harry had insisted. “But if Atkins was there the whole time, he must have been watching as well.”)

It had also become very apparent via heat signature scans at the entrances to Weber’s place that although Weber was working with at least three other people, only the same two of the other three seemed to ever actually go in and out of the building. It seemed increasingly likely that the last person was someone akin to Percival, contacting them from a remote location and overseeing the entire operation.

Weber stayed in the area the entire time. So did two of the others he was working with – Loussac and Atkins. The fourth person, still, remained completely unknown. Harry and Roxy caught glimpses of Weber, Atkins, and Loussac from time to time, and they always met their gaze evenly, daringly, almost threateningly. It was unnerving.

It wasn’t surprising that they occasionally ran into each other. Kingsman knew where Weber was staying (a piece of information that Weber didn’t seem bothered they knew), and Weber, somehow, impossibly, knew where Harry and Roxy were staying. They knew Weber was involved with Garlon’s network, and they had ample reason to suspect Weber in turn knew who they were as well. So they met, often giving each other courteous nods of acknowledgement and exchanging a few words, but nothing seemed to move forward. No new information was forthcoming, no promising new opportunity presented itself. Kingsman was good at what it did, but Weber and his men were too.

They started checking themselves thoroughly for bugs, because Weber seemed so ridiculously _confident_ and surely that had to be because he felt that he had the upper hand, and yet he had done absolutely nothing. They never found any bugs, they never felt that they were being followed, and it started becoming very apparent that Kingsman and Weber – or, rather Kingsman and Weber’s network – were engaged in a psychological battle, a game of cat and mouse, a game of chicken, waiting to see who would crack first and reveal a weakness.

It was infuriating. Perhaps the only solace was that Merlin had made a prompt recovery, and within the next week had been discharged from Medical and assigned to join their case. Still, even with another mind working on it, nothing seemed to improve.

The mission became dull. Not, of course, in the sense that Harry was bored with it, in that there was nothing to do, but rather in the sense that every day was more of the same. More disappointment, more waiting, more fruitless discussion of what to do next.

Harry thought about Eggsy, as he often did when he wasn’t kept busy enough or was frustrated with being kept busy doing unproductive things. He wondered if the boy was doing alright, if the boy still remembered Harry and thought of Harry as fondly as Harry thought about him, or if the boy resented him for not wiping his memory and yet staying forever, irreversibly out of reach.

He wondered if the boy still loved him.

It wasn’t something he could talk about with any of the other Kingsman agents, of course. As far as they knew, Eggsy had been darted two years ago and remembered nothing of any of them.

Harry, for his part, certainly still loved him. He knew it wasn’t something Kingsman would condone, and after so many years of strict allegiance to the knight’s code it still felt strange to think of another human being and desire so terribly to see them again – being in love, he’d found, was different from anything he had experienced before. But it was something he’d learned to accept.

He’d think, at times, that he had perhaps gotten over it. He’d think of the boy and sometimes the longing ache that had filled him for the past two years would fade a little into mere wistfulness and pleasant nostalgia, and he’d think that he’d come to accept that Eggsy could never be his, and that he could never see the boy again. But there was always something to remind him, always something to bring that fierce, bright devotion back.

And yet, none of that could have compared to seeing the boy coming out of a pastry shop two weeks later, sauntering down the sidewalk across the street, just meters away, in his old winged trainers and bizarre yellow jacket, an almost dance-like lightness in his step that must have had to do with the music playing from the headphones he had in his ears.

Eggsy didn’t see him. Harry was alone, and his visual transmission was off, and it would have been so easy to call out to him, to do something to get the boy’s attention, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.

And then Eggsy rounded the corner and was gone.

Harry felt like he had been shot. He faltered; it was slight, nothing more than a small hitch in the rhythm of his steps, but he knew he did, and it was all he could do to not let his gaze linger, to not do anything more than let his eyes pass over the street corner Eggsy had just been on like he was just another stranger. It was just a moment, a few seconds between when he’d emerged from behind that frosted glass door and when he’d turned down another street, but it had felt like an eternity.

Two years.

It had been two years since Harry had seen him, and Harry would have known him anywhere.

Distantly, he wondered what Eggsy was doing in this part of London. _A boyfriend, perhaps? Or perhaps a girlfriend?_ A small voice in the back of his mind told him that it was plausible; Eggsy may have loved him at one point, but he’d made his attraction to women clear enough. He’d always been the type to love anyone, regardless of gender.

He tried not to be jealous. It was an excellent pastry shop; perhaps he had just come across a bit of extra money and wanted to spend it on his mother and sister. Harry had known how much he’d loved them. But regardless, anything that had existed between them had been over for years, and nothing between them could happen again. Not while Harry was in Kingsman and Eggsy wasn’t. Not while Eggsy wasn’t supposed to remember a thing about him.

He kept his eyes forward and walked on. But there was now an even greater urgency to complete the mission and, at the very least, bring Weber in for interrogation. Because for whatever reason, for however long, Eggsy was here in Kensington, and so was the man responsible for shooting Merlin and dozens of other innocent people.

Kingsman had to finish this.

Harry had to keep Eggsy safe.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuff happens, and they seem to make a bit of progress. But Garlon’s guys know something that Kingsman doesn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays everyone! Here, have some angst.

HARRY

 

Two more weeks passed, fruitlessly. And then, in mid-late July, came a little bit of a lead.

“Connection from the bug on Loussac,” Roxy said through the glasses, and there seemed to be a note of vicious triumph in her voice. “It’s the new gel tracker. Took a shit ton more work to bug them than it should’ve, so let’s hope it gives us something.”

‘A shit ton more work’ was a bit of an understatement. Weber, Loussac, and Atkins had been perfectly adept at discovering external bugs, and they hadn’t seemed to have particularly cared about finding them. (Harry and Roxy had managed to get each of them once, but after all of the bugs had been quickly discovered and discarded, they hadn’t dared to attempt any more with the same technique.) It had become an increasingly likely possibility that the three of them, knowing their conversation was being transmitted, were saying enough to keep Kingsman on edge before removing the bugs and destroying them, and then discussing their own side of the situation. Such now-unmonitored discussion, would, of course, involve valuable information that Kingsman would need to get ahead.

Kingsman’s plan, therefore, was then to get a bug on them that they wouldn’t discover or wouldn’t be able to remove. The obvious first step was for Merlin to get the newest version of his gel tracker to them as soon as possible – a tracker that could be slipped into a drink or mixed into a meal – and next, for them to, in turn, get that gel tracker into something either Weber, Loussac, or Atkins would consume.

This first part had not been too difficult; slipping the trackers into the building’s mailbox was something easily accomplished by an undercover agent disguised as the postman, so that all that remained was to bring them in with the daily mail. It was the second part which was a little more complex.

It had taken careful observation to discover that, one night, one of the three ordered an iced coke with his takeout. This would not normally have been any trouble for adept Kingsman agents to discover, but Merlin was adamant that they be careful, since everyone was operating under the assumption that they were being watched and any one of Garlon’s network would have been stupid not to make sure their online activity – including that involving ordering food – wasn’t being tracked. It was imperative, then, that Harry and Roxy did nothing to observe any of them directly to avoid rousing further suspicion than they already had.

No, this particular bit of information was gleaned from Merlin and Percival carefully tapping into the servers of all nearby restaurants and food suppliers (if nothing else, Garlon’s guys had to be getting their food from _somewhere_ and none of them seemed to frequent the grocery shop) via a quiet, monitoring virus introduced through a flash drive that either Harry or Roxy inserted after the buildings had closed down for the night. This was perhaps the riskiest part of the mission; one mistake could mean they would be caught on the security cameras or that they could trip the building’s alarm system instead of disabling it, both of which would rouse suspicion and potentially alert Garlon’s network to what they were doing.

But this step passed without incident, and a few days of careful screening later Merlin had called in with a potential lead.

“So we all agreed that they’re unlikely to use their real names when placing orders, yes? Well, we were wrong. Loussac just ordered a pizza and a coke from Prezzo, delivered to Garlon’s.” (Garlon’s house was what they had taken to calling the builder that Weber, Atkins, and Loussac were staying in.)

“On it,” Roxy had said tersely, putting her bowl of pasta down on the table. “ETA?”

“Based on online reviews, about fifteen minutes before it’s in a delivery car. Based on Prezzo’s system right now, probably a little sooner; it’s a slow night.”

“We’ll be there,” Harry had said, and in less than thirty seconds they’d been out the door.

“A bit overconfident, aren’t they?” Roxy said, precisely sixteen minutes later. This very last part of the mission had been a bit simpler, just needing Roxy to distract the young delivery boy as he got into the delivery car for Harry to be able to discreetly open the bottle in the backset, slip the tracker in, replace the cap with one of the sealed replica caps they’d brought along, and then dart back out of sight.

“I’m going to wait until this actually works to make any grand declarations,” Harry said mildly. “Nice job on that poor lad, by the way. He’s probably going to be waiting hopelessly for you to text him.”

“He’ll be waiting a while, then.” Roxy huffed and folded up the piece of paper the boy had given her before tossing it into a nearby bin. “I hate gender roles, and I hate honeypots with men.”

“That was hardly a honeypot,” Merlin said through the glasses. “And they’re not that bad.”

“ _You’re_ a man, you’re _into_ men, _you_ don’t get to talk,” Roxy said waspishly.

Merlin chuckled. “You’re right. Apologies.”

“Apology accepted,” Roxy sniffed. “And don’t you start laughing, Harry. Remember our agreement, yeah? You get to complain to me about honeypots with women if I get to complain to you about honeypots with men.”

Harry couldn’t help the amused smile that spread itself over his face.

The way back to their own place was much more relaxed, now that they’d actually, hopefully, gotten something accomplished. Now, they simply had to wait for Loussac to take a sip of the coke, and they would know his every move – and should Merlin’s design work, his every word, as well – for the next twenty-four-ish hours.

They were lucky. It was seventeen minutes after they’d slipped the tracker into the drink that Loussac had taken a sip, and the connection had established. During the next twenty-two hours that the connection remained active, they caught the vast majority of what was said, including a few very interesting tidbits of information.

“– impatient,” Loussac was saying, when the connection had first been established. The sound was a little bit garbled, and Merlin mumbled something about needed to do better on filtering out sounds of chewing.

“We can’t risk it,” Weber said. “Gaz is right, we need to be careful. We can’t risk one of us getting taken.”

“Gaz?” Roxy muttered.

Harry shook his head. “Don’t know. Probably their mysterious fourth person.”

Atkins was speaking now. “Boss is getting impatient, too,” he said, and he sounded frustrated. “It’s been way too long.”

“We _can’t risk it_ ,” Weber snapped. “Could you imagine how fucking pissed Boss would be if we rushed into it and fucked everything up? Gaz just said he wanted to deliver something to us, yeah? Let’s try _not_ to do something that would make him want to deliver a fucking _bomb_.”

There was a silence, punctuated by a few words of agreement from Weber. (“Gaz must be talking through an earpiece,” Percival said quietly.)

“Alright. Saturday,” Weber said.

“I don’t like it,” Loussac grumbled. “All of us in one place? You just said we needed to be careful, and now you want us all there together. We’d be sitting ducks.” The next few seconds of conversation were muffled by the sounds of Loussac rustling through the delivery bag and slurping noisily at his coke.

“– us alive,” Weber was saying, when clear audio was reestablished.

Atkins made a noise of agreement. “That’s true. Now, can we go over this one more time?”

Sitting beside Harry, as Garlon’s men discussed the details of the meeting, Roxy’s lips curved in a devilish, wicked smile.

“Got ‘em.”

 

 

 

Weber, Atkins, and Loussac were scheduled to pick up a package from an old abandoned warehouse just outside Kensington at 0600 on Saturday. Weber would drive Loussac to the pickup location, wait for him to get the package, and then drive him back. Atkins would drive separately and cover the entrances.

Atkins was the man Harry and Roxy would try to get.

 

 

 

Saturday morning was warm and clear. A Kingsman cab came by to pick them up around 0500; Harry thought it a good idea to get to the location before Weber did if Weber was indeed planning on waiting there and Atkins was supposed to watch entrances.

The drive to the location itself didn’t take very long, but having the extra time to scope out the location in person was useful. It was remarkably exposed, making ambush difficult, but Harry and Roxy both had long-range darts that they could use to knock Atkins out.

Once they had found suitable places to take cover, all that was left was for them to wait.

Weber and Loussac showed up first; Harry heard the rumble of the car’s engine from the other side of the building and Roxy informed him that she had eyes on them. A few minutes later, Atkins showed up as well, hands casually in the pocket of his coat, headed towards the back entrance closest to Harry and Roxy. As planned, he stayed outside near the door, and once he confirmed his location and the security of the entrance, Loussac headed into the building. Weber stayed in the car.

Kingsman’s plan was to ambush Atkins when Loussac was still in the building. The Kingsman driver would drive the cab past the area while Roxy fired a long-range dart with a fast-acting sedative into the man’s neck; the sound of the cab’s engine would help drown out any reflexive noise Atkins might make in the quiet stillness of the early morning. Harry, who had taken cover much nearer to the back entrance where Atkins was than Roxy, would rush in and carry the man’s sedated body to another Kingsman cab, which would have parked nearby at the edge of the River Thames. Roxy would follow, and the cab’s underwater abilities and remote steering, controlled by Percival back at HQ, would allow them to escape undetected. By the time Garlon’s men realized that Atkins was gone, hopefully Kingsman would be too.

“Loussac’s inside,” Roxy whispered.

“Excellent. Now we just need to wait for the cab,” Merlin said quietly.

“Weber’s in my line of sight,” Roxy said. “A bit closer than we thought he’d be. So move quickly as soon as I dart Atkins.”

Harry nodded tersely. “Copy that.”

“Cab incoming,” Percival said. “Turning onto the street now.”

“I hear it,” Harry murmured.

“One hundred meters from the warehouse,” Merlin said. “Lancelot, you’re green.”

“Copy. Dart in three, two –”

And that was when it all went to shit.

Even before Roxy had fired the dart, Atkins had cried out and drawn his gun, pointing it in front of him in a defensive position while Loussac, still in the warehouse, sprinted towards the exit; his footsteps echoed through the compound.

“Shit!” Harry snapped. He leapt out from his cover, diving into a roll to evade the bullets Atkins set roaring towards him; even then, one of them struck the hip of his suit. The bulletproof fabric stopped it from making a bloody mess of his hip, but it stung sharply, and he knew it would bruise. He retaliated, sending a bullet into each of Atkins’s knees; the man screamed and fell, gun clattering to the ground.

Roxy, meanwhile, was engaged with Loussac who had burst out the back door of the warehouse behind Atkins. She’d disarmed him, but they seemed to be fairly matched in hand-to-hand combat, and neither of them were gaining the upper hand.

“Weber’s staying in the car,” Merlin said tersely. “He has a gun.”

“Fuck.” Harry kicked Atkins’s gun out of reach and headed towards Roxy, who had just given Loussac an elbow to the chest but who seemed unaware of Weber lifting his weapon and pointing towards her through the open window of the driver’s seat.

“We have Atkins. Shoot to kill,” Percival snapped.

 _We have one of them already. Better the other two dead than one of us._ It was a difficult angle to make when short on time and Harry’s first shot just barely missed, hitting the barrel of Weber’s gun and ricocheting off. It was enough to temporarily damage the weapon, but Weber would have been stupid to have only brought one.

Sure enough, gunfire roared out from the car a few seconds later at the same time Roxy delivered a roundhouse kick to Loussac’s head. Harry fired back at Weber, the steel tip of the Kingsman bullets doing little more than denting the car door Weber was crouched behind; similarly, the tires refused to be damaged.

“Steel-plated exterior, self-sealing tires,” Percival said. “You’ll need to get closer to Weber.”

“There’s no fucking _time_ ,” Harry snarled, throwing up an arm to block his face from the barrage of bullets Weber sent in his direction. He felt the bullets hit him, pain lancing through his forearm and over his chest from the force of them on the bulletproof suit, and returned fire when Weber had to pause to reload. He felt a rush of satisfaction as he saw Roxy deliver a sharp punch to Loussac’s nose; blood spurted, and Roxy took advantage of his momentary distraction to position him between her and Weber as well as she could.

“I got him,” Roxy said fiercely, delivering several hard, sharp blows in quick succession, and Harry saw her priming her watch in between blows, saw her firing an electrical dart towards Loussac as she ducked under one of his punches, swung wide. “You get Atkins.”

Weber’s gun roared again. A bullet striking the suit of Roxy’s left arm threw off her aim, and the dart shot past Loussac’s face. He struck her, knocking her backwards, but she sent another dart out which lodged itself firmly under his jaw. Electricity crackled, Loussac’s body convulsed, and he fell limp to the ground.

_Got them._

But then there was another bang, a blinding flash of light, and clouds of black smoke billowing up from several smoke grenades that had been thrown around him while Harry and Roxy reeled from the noise and the brilliance of the flash bomb. Within moments the smoke surrounded them.

“Lancelot!” Harry yelled, instinctively covering his nose and mouth. Something shoved him backwards, a person, darting forward out of the darkness and retreating again just as fast as it had come. The smoke must have contained a multi-spectrum component, blocking any clear heat signatures that would come from Lancelot, Loussac, Weber, or whoever had dispensed the flash flare and smoke, even if Harry’s eyes had recovered enough from the flare to be able to see anything yet, but it hadn’t seemed to have affected his breathing or his eyes more than he had expected it to.

“I’m – shit! What the fuck?” Roxy exclaimed.

“There’s someone else here,” Merlin said tersely. “Might be Gaz. None of us can see anything. Be careful. Are both of you alright?”

Harry blinked hard a few times. <Slightly blind from that flare, but yes> It was possible that even if Gaz could somehow see what was going on, Loussac and Weber couldn’t, and it didn’t seem a good idea to talk out loud and give away their positions.

<That makes two of us> Roxy typed. <Seems to be standard military-issue smoke grenades, if a bit bigger than the ones you’d typically find. Not feeling any adverse effects>

“Good. Galahad, turn twelve degrees to your left and walk forward,” Merlin said. “Lancelot, stay where you are; Galahad is coming to you. Both of you, keep an eye out in case Garlon’s guys are still around.”

The smoke was starting to dissipate. Not enough for any clear readings of heat signatures all around them, but enough so that, past the white spots still swimming before his vision, Harry could see the vague, shadowy shape of Roxy when they were close enough.

“We need to get Atkins,” Roxy hissed.

“Weber’s making a run for it,” Percival said. He was right; Harry had heard sounds of people – presumably Loussac and potentially-Gaz – getting into a car, and then the sound of the car’s engine roaring to life and fading as it drove away.

“Loussac?” Harry asked.

Roxy spat. “Fucking lost him. Someone grabbed him; might have been Weber, might have been Gaz, but – here, this way. Let’s hope they left Atkins behind.” She gripped Harry’s wrist and they walked forwards, in a direction that Harry’s glasses told him was roughly west; the direction Atkins (hopefully) still lay after he had fallen when Harry had shot him.

The smoke was dissipating on a slight breeze that had picked up. It was only a few moments before Harry and Roxy were able to see clearly again, but when Atkins came into view, Harry felt his heart drop.

“Fuck,” Harry said. “They fucking killed Atkins.”

The man lay limp on the ground, in roughly the same spot he had fallen when Harry had shot out his kneecaps, his hands outstretched towards the gun Harry had kicked away from him. There was a neat hole in his forehead and a gaping hole in the back of his head where the bullet had exited; blood and brain matter lay splattered on the ground around him.

His eyes were open. Wide and terrified, the expression struck onto his face forever.

“He knew,” Roxy murmured. “He knew they’d kill him.”

“Merlin, Percival, did either of you get anything on who shot him?” Harry asked as he crouched down next to the body to search it; Roxy began searching for the bullet, which would give them ballistics information that could potentially be useful.

Merlin sounded frustrated. “No. It definitely wasn’t Loussac, but depending on where this Gaz person may have been located, it could have either been Gaz or Weber. It seems most likely that he was shot during your firefight with Weber, but there was too much going on that I can’t make out.”

“Shit.” Harry heaved the body over and kept searching; the man didn’t have many pockets, and other than a simple switchblade, there was little more in the few pockets he had than lint. “I’ve got nothing.”

“Same,” Roxy said. “I don’t know where the bullet went, and the area is too large to search thoroughly right now. It’s hard to tell which direction he was even shot in; the bullet could have gone anywhere.”

Merlin sighed. “Alright. I suppose ballistics isn’t actually useful unless we know much about the gun anyway, and you both need to get out of here. Police are headed your way.”

The cab was still waiting by the edge of the river by the time Harry and Roxy arrived. It was light out by now, and since they hadn’t gotten the hostage they’d hoped for, they were headed back to the Kingsman house they had been staying at instead of back to HQ.

“So we know Gaz is around,” Roxy said once they were back inside the house and checked for bugs, of which they found none. Neither she nor Harry had changed out of their suits yet, and the image of Percival’s head floated above the projection site. (Merlin, still, refused to be seen.)

“He had us cornered,” Harry said bitterly.

“And they knew,” Roxy said. “It was a trap. It wasn’t remarkably effective, as far as we know so far, but it was supposed to be a trap. There was no package, and they knew we were coming.”

Harry shook his head. “I can only assume we were so focused on watching Loussac, Weber, and Atkins that we failed to consider the possibility that Gaz was also around. Which was stupid, considering that stunt Atkins pulled on us that night at the pub. Gaz must have been watching us without us even knowing of it, and after seeing – or hearing of – our gel tracker, he must have staged that conversation, knowing that we’d come.”

Percival passed a hand over his face. “And we still don’t know what he looks like, we still don’t know what his voice sounds like. We know nothing and we have no way of finding out that information right now.”

“Turns out they had good reason to be confident,” Roxy muttered. “And considering we know nothing about Gaz and he knows everything about us, this shit suddenly got a lot more dangerous.”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t understand why Gaz didn’t take one of us as well. He clearly was able to navigate around in the smoke despite the multi-spectrum component.”

“Right; he knew exactly where everyone was,” Roxy said. “And he shoved me back away from Loussac.”

“He pushed me backwards too,” Harry said. “Physical contact, but no harm actually done to either of us even though he must have been armed. Of course, he got Loussac out of danger, but considering Weber was still alive and perfectly functional, surely it would have been more practical to kill Loussac as well as Atkins, knock one of us out, and bring us back for interrogation. But he didn’t.”

A wrinkle formed between Roxy’s eyebrows as she frowned. “Even crippling us would have been better for them than leaving us completely unharmed. And when you say no harm done, it really was no harm done. Loussac hit me harder than Gaz did.”

“He didn’t want to hurt us,” Harry realized suddenly. “Or he didn’t want to have hostages yet. Either way, his purpose there was to get Loussac and Weber out. He wanted nothing to do with us.”

Roxy’s frown deepened. “But _why_? I don’t understand…is he waiting for something?”

“I don’t know what he would be waiting for,” Merlin said. “But I don’t know what else it would be, unless he didn’t see Loussac as disposable as he saw Atkins. It certainly wouldn’t make sense for him to kill one of his own agents unless he absolutely needed to. Perhaps the loss of one agent was enough for him today.”

Roxy snorted. “He doesn’t seem the type to really care about his agents enough for that, but I suppose it makes sense. Especially if he felt like he would have another chance to get at us, in which case the smart thing to do would have been exactly what he did: get out while he could, keep as many agents alive as possible, and wait for the next moment to strike again.”

“And they will wait,” Percival said. “They’ve just found out that when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, they’re inferior. They’ll need to wait for backup, or they’ll need to come up with a better plan.”

“They won’t rush into a direct confrontation again,” Merlin agreed.

“This is assuming their motivation is actually to take a live hostage,” Roxy mused. “I wonder if we’ve been looking at this wrong. See, _we’ve_ been trying to bug them. _We’ve_ been trying to figure out where they’re going to be so that we can nab one of them. _We’ve_ been trying to get information out of them. But them? Since when have they bugged us, and since when have they made a single move to take one of us hostage?”

Percival frowned. “Unless Gaz has been their bug.”

Harry made a soft noise of agreement. “It’s possible that they’re waiting for something before they can take any real action, and all of this has been stalling. Or perhaps this is all a distraction, a front they put up to keep us from focusing on some other underground thing they’re doing. But regardless, we do know something. To them, a badly injured agent is a disposable agent, especially when a rescue is inconvenient. If we’re going to capture one of them alive, we need to be able to do it out of range of someone else’s gun.”

“Definitely something to keep in mind,” Merlin said. He sighed. “You both look a mess. Go get cleaned up, get some food, get some rest.”

“I think we should hit them again,” Roxy countered. She was on her feet, still bristling with energy. “It’s right after they lost one of their agents; they’re weak, they’re tired, they’re probably a little more on edge because they know they almost lost everything. We should hit them before they can build up defenses.”

“ _No_ ,” Merlin said emphatically. “We’re not doing anything until we know a little bit more about Gaz. I’m not going to risk either of you. Now go get cleaned up and get some rest. We can talk more later.”

Roxy huffed, but she gave in. They took turns in the shower, not wanting to both be caught unawares and in a compromised position if Garlon’s men decided to do something, and when Roxy was in the shower Harry heated up leftovers for dinner and iced his bruises.

Garlon didn’t do anything, at least for the next two days.

Neither did Kingsman.

And then, on the third day, Roxy found a bug. Or, perhaps more precisely, as soon as she’d set down the groceries, she’d asked Harry to check the back of her suit, where _he’d_ found the bug.

“I thought I felt something,” she mused, as Harry crushed the small device underfoot and then flushed it down the toilet. “They either have a long-range deployer, a new agent we don’t know about, or I’m just getting really bad at noticing things around me. The only time I was near a group of people was at the grocery shop.”

“Long-range is most likely,” Percival said. “I wonder why they’re suddenly bugging us.”

“Something happen to Gaz?” Merlin spoke, and his voice sounded far away.

Roxy shook her head. “I don’t think so. Maybe they’re just trying their luck, trying to get some more information on us before they do anything. They did just lose Atkins.”

“Mm. That’s a good point.” Merlin’s voice sounded normal now. “Sorry, I was getting coffee.”

Harry took a bite of one of the sandwiches Roxy had bought. It wasn’t anything outstanding, but it was still decently good, if a bit dry. “No worries. About the bugs though, it seems like they’re getting desperate.”

“Which I don’t understand,” Roxy said. “We might beat them in close combat, but they still have the upper hand overall. We still know nothing about Gaz, other than that he’s around, and he’s dangerous, and for some reason he decided to spare us.”

That, indeed, was a worrying thought. It wasn’t so much a realization about his own mortality that had shaken him; he and every other Kingsman agent had always known that they could die any day, and after living that reality for so long it was only a matter of time before they’d all accepted it.

No, it was more about the fact that if Gaz hadn’t chosen to spare them, to let them go, he and Roxy – or both of them – could be in Garlon’s hands right now. Harry had been questioned before, sure. He’d nearly _died_ before. But never had he been so close to being in the hands of someone who seemed bent on taking out Kingsman, a goal that, if reached because Harry wasn’t allowed to die before giving up Kingsman’s secrets, would surely result in the fast and inevitable downfall of what little order was left in the world.

Garlon couldn’t be allowed to win. Kingsman had to get to one of his agents first before he got to them.

 

 

 

**Night before present day, August 11 2016**

 

A little more than a week passed without much happening. Under Merlin and Percival’s orders Harry and Roxy had stayed relatively conservative in their actions, not doing much more than observing, waiting for Garlon to make a move. That, they all agreed, would be the best decision. They knew Garlon’s men were on edge, and if they waited long enough, it was very possible that the men would crack, move first, make a mistake.

Nerves always caused people to make mistakes, and Kingsman was counting on that.

And so it became a waiting game once again, like the first few weeks of the mission. Kingsman and Garlon, playing cat and mouse, waiting to see who ran out of patience, who tired first. Whoever moved first would give away their position, put themselves in a spot easier for the other to strike at.

If Gaz was going to make Kingsman wonder what they were waiting for, Kingsman was going to make Gaz wonder the same thing. It was only fair, Harry thought, with a little amusement.

It was an infuriating, seemingly endless wait, the calm before the storm that they all knew would break in the end, but in the end it turned out that Kingsman was right. Being on edge too long meant that people would crack, would move first and give away their position, and nine days of waiting was just long enough for Garlon’s men to lose their nerve, to give into the need for _something_ to happen in all of the silence and waiting.

So Garlon’s men moved first.

It just so happened that the way they moved first was absolute _shit_.

 

 

 

_You have one unread email._

Harry’s brow furrowed; spam, probably, since he rarely ever used his personal email anymore. The dot in the corner of his vision was still red, indicating that the signal was still transmitting, but it didn’t matter. He knew it was Merlin on the other side, and there was nothing so personal in his personal email that he really minded Merlin seeing.

Then he clicked on the email, and it was like all of the blood in his veins had turned to ice.

It was a video. He had to download it to view its actual contents, but a quick scan of the email’s contents made it perfectly clear what the situation was.

 

 

_Hello, Galahad. Or should I say Harry Hart? That is indeed your name, is it not?_

 

_We hope this reaches you before it’s too late, though of course, we understand that all incoming material, including material sent to personal accounts, are likely to go through an extensive screening process set up by your tech department, and thus may not reach your actual inbox until awhile later. Please rest assured that this attachment contains no viruses or anything else of the sort. It is a simple MP4 and may be downloaded to any device without causing it harm._

_The same, unfortunately, may not be said of a certain Eggsy Unwin currently held at the location disclosed in the video. He will be held until the time also disclosed in the video, after which an unfortunate fate will befall him and his family unless you agree to our terms. In person, of course; we know you will understand. We hope we have not underestimated the goodness in the hearts of Kingsman agents, and we, therefore, hope to see you very soon._

 

_Regards,_

_The Invisible Knight_

 

 

Roxy was already at Harry’s side, having heard the hitch in his breathing, seen the sudden paleness of his face, and the pain of her suddenly iron grip on his shoulders was somehow calming.

“Merlin,” Harry rasped out, after a few long moments of numbed shock, spent staring blankly at the screen. It was barely more than a whisper, forced out from a throat that was suddenly too dry, from between lips that were suddenly dumb. “Merlin, are you seeing this?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.” There was a tremor to Merlin’s voice that Harry had never heard before. “I’m running tests on the video right now, and so far, it’s coming up clean.”

Harry swallowed. “It’s – it’s Weber.”

“I know.” Merlin’s voice was tense. Distantly, he was aware of Merlin calling Percival over to the screen.

Harry swallowed again. His limbs were shaking. He hadn’t known Eggsy was still even in the area. And Weber – he’d had Eggsy all this time, if he hurt Eggsy, if he’d done anything to him –

Anger. Unbridled, uncaged. It suddenly didn’t seem to matter that they needed Weber alive to find the rest of his network, that preserving Weber’s life long enough to question him was essential to the safety of the rest of the world in the future. If he saw Weber now, if he ever saw Weber again, he knew he’d be ready to kill. He’d be ready to tear the man’s throat out with his bare teeth for shooting Merlin, for hurting Eggsy –

“Harry.” It was Roxy’s voice, not nearly as calm as it usually was, but calmer than Harry felt. It brought him back, held back the anger, tugged reason and control back to the forefront of his mind.

Suddenly, he was cold again, empty without the red-hot fire of rage.

It felt like minutes passed before Merlin spoke again. Minutes that Harry spent staring at the thumbnail, staring at the knife pressed against Eggsy Unwin’s throat.

_I love him._

Harry hadn’t thought that in a long time. He hadn’t thought much about _Eggsy_ in a long time, having been too preoccupied with the mission, and the sudden reminder that he loved the boy –

_Oh God, I love him._

Merlin spoke. “Confirmed; it’s clean. We need to take a look at it.”

“Yes,” Harry agreed. Numbly. In shock.

_Held until when? Is it too late, is he already –_

“You don’t need to,” Roxy said gently, and Harry knew what she meant, and he knew that it had shaken her just as much as it had shaken him. Somehow, that knowledge made it all easier to bear.

“No,” Harry said, and he sounded a little steadier. “I’m alright. I can do it.” And he clicked on the video before he could change his mind, before he could be talked out of it.

 

 

Seeing Eggsy Unwin strung up and beaten was something Harry didn’t think he would ever be able to forget. It was burned into the backs of his eyes, seared on his aching soul.

 

 

 

“We had less than twelve hours.” Harry’s voice was surprisingly calm, given this was Eggsy’s life he was talking about. “Less than twelve hours by the time we saw the video, and we’ve already spent two of those hours arguing about what we’re going to do.”

It had been just before midnight when Harry had gotten the email from Garlon. They had until 1100 the next day to get to the specified location, and Harry was aware of how time was ticking. Too aware. He knew it was messing with his common sense, wreaking havoc on his judgement, but Eggsy was all Harry could think about.

_The way he had made him scream…_

There were unspoken questions behind all of this too, that Harry knew they were all thinking. How had they known that this would be enough to lure them in? How had they known that Harry would be willing to drop everything and give himself up if it meant that Eggsy would be safe? Had they known about Harry’s love for Eggsy, or was it just a wild, lucky guess that they had picked the right innocent boy to bring Kingsman to their knees?

“And rushing into this would be a mistake,” Percival said, his voice pulling Harry out of his thoughts. “We’ve tracked the message, and it was sent from an old warehouse about three miles away from the location specified in the video. Both are areas surrounded by more old, run-down buildings and are equally likely locations to hold a hostage, so at this point we can’t say which one Eggsy is more likely to be at.”

“But considering who we’re dealing with it’s too dangerous to split up,” Merlin countered.

“We might not have a choice,” Roxy said. Her hands were still on Harry’s shoulders, grounding him; her touch had been constant the past half hour, and Harry had a feeling that it was helping her just as much as it was helping him. It seemed unreal, that the person who had killed others so easily now had his hands on the boy Harry loved more than anything else. Because Weber was Garlon. The video had confirmed that.

_And now Garlon has Eggsy._

Harry could almost smell Merlin’s uneasiness. _Too many variables_ , he would say. _We still don’t know how they know your code name, how they know your real name. How they know your personal email. How they know we call him the Invisible Knight._

And the unspoken truth: Eggsy had known all of that information.

_What did they do to him for him to give that all away? He’d stared death in the face and refused to betray Kingsman even before he was a recruit. What did they do to him that was worse than that?_

“We are both fully equipped to deal with such situations alone,” Harry heard himself say. _I won’t let Eggsy die. I don’t care what it takes._

“We also don’t know how recent the video is,” Merlin said. “It could be another trap.”

“Merlin,” Roxy said, and there was a note of pleading in her voice.

“Of course it’s another trap,” Harry said bitingly. “But we don’t have time.”

“It’s _Eggsy_ ,” Percival said quietly. Harry felt a rush of guilt; Eggsy remembered everything, because Harry hadn’t darted him like he was supposed to. The others weren’t aware of this. The others didn’t know that Eggsy would have been tortured for information, and not just beat up for a video.

The others didn’t know that this was all Harry’s fault.

“You could be walking into their hands,” Merlin said, and Harry could hear how hard it was for him for him to say that, to prioritize Kingsman over the life of one boy. But they had to think about the greater good. They had to prevent Kingman secrets from falling into enemy hands, so that Kingsman would survive, so that Kingsman could keep protecting the world.

For a moment, Harry hated him, for being able to say that.

“I saw him,” Harry said. The words slipped out, dripping with guilt.

The others went silent.

“You what?” Roxy whispered, after a long moment.

“I saw him,” Harry said again. “About five weeks ago, a week after you joined the case, Merlin. He was coming out of a pastry shop across the street.”

Another silence.

“I didn’t know he was still in the area,” Harry said, and his voice shook ever so slightly. “I assumed he was just here for a day, maybe a week, because I didn’t see him again after that. But he was here.”

“Did he see you?” Percival asked.

“It shouldn’t matter,” Merlin said. “To him, Harry would just be another stranger.”

Harry swallowed. _I wouldn’t be. I should be, but I’m not._

“The more important question,” Merlin continued, “is whether or not someone _else_ saw _you_. There’s no doubt that a trained spy would be able to see if your attention had shifted, even if just for a moment. Whatever you could see in someone else, Garlon’s guys can see in you.”

“I…to my knowledge, no one saw me,” Harry said, but they all knew that it meant nothing. After Gaz had revealed himself at that warehouse, after Kingsman had found out that they had been watched all this time, there was no telling what Garlon’s men had seen without Kingsman knowing.

“This complicates things,” Merlin said quietly. “If this wasn’t just luck on their part, if they knew who they had chosen to bring us in…”

“I can’t just leave him to die,” Harry whispered. Beside him, he saw Roxy’s knuckles whitening as she gripped the armrests of the couch.

“And I can’t let you just walk in there to your death, to the death of Kingsman,” Merlin snapped. “There’s more at stake here than the life of just one person, no matter what guilt you might feel.”

Harry couldn’t help but flinch back. “Merlin, I –”

“You’re a Kingsman, Harry,” Merlin said. “Remember what that means. You follow _orders_ , not your heart.”

“He would have been, too,” Harry said, and he was angry now. “You know he would have been one of us, you know he had the quality. _You loved him too_ , Merlin, or have you forgotten?”

There was a long, tense silence. Harry heard his breaths, harsh and loud and fast in the silence, felt the heat of his anger simmering just above his skin. Roxy, beside him, was edged forward in her seat, her eyes blazing, and he knew she was more inclined to obey her superiors, to follow orders without protest and with trust that they would do the right thing, but he knew she felt the same as him.

And yet, perhaps, she was less selfish than him. Perhaps she’d be able to understand that Kingsman’s needs outweighed Eggsy’s in a way that Harry couldn’t. Perhaps, as hard as it would be for her, if Merlin ordered her to stop Harry from going after the boy he loved, she wouldn’t hesitate to take him down. She was strong, fast, agile, young. Harry may have more experience than her, but his body was no longer what it used to be twenty-five years ago when he was her age. If Merlin wanted Harry subdued, Roxy wouldn’t fail.

But Harry would never forgive them for it.

The air was electric, tension almost palpable. And finally, Merlin spoke.

“Alright. We’ll go after him. But – _but_ – give me a few hours to figure this out.”

“A few hours – Merlin, you do realize his _life_ is on the line –”

“Yes, and he’s going to die if we just barge in there with no plan just as well as if we’re late,” Merlin said sharply. “I know what’s at stake here. Give us until four. That’s two hours for Percival and I to find the floor plans of the buildings, two hours to try and get as much out of the email as we can and piece some of this shit together. Two hours for you to rest. After that, we’ll send you what we have. You study it, we come up with as good a plan as we can. We head out at 0600.”

Harry felt his breaths slow, felt his anger fade a little. “I apologize. Thank you.” He didn’t like the wait, but he knew it was necessary. He knew Merlin was right. He knew it was emotion, not logic, that ultimately governed his decision.

“We have to be there by 1100,” Roxy said quietly, and her hand was gentle against Harry’s wrist. “Leaving at 0600 gives us enough time.”

“It had better be,” Harry said.

He didn’t rest.

Neither did Roxy.

Two hours later, as promised, Merlin contacted them again. “The building in the video is not from the location they want us to go to, nor is it from the location the video was sent from. The sizes of the rooms don’t match up, unless they were able to somehow restructure the building.”

“So we don’t know if Eggsy will even be there,” Harry realized, with a sense of dread.

“That’s a chance we need to take if you’re set on this,” Merlin said, and Harry knew he didn’t like it. “If we show up, even if he’s not there, it might buy him some time.”

_Not unless they kill him as soon as they think they’ve gotten us._

“Do you know where it is? Any possibility that the building in the video is part of their headquarters?” Roxy asked.

Percival shook his head. “No idea. There were no location clues; no windows, blank walls, not even the sound of traffic. Most likely it was in some sort of basement of a large building, but there’s no way of knowing if it’s even in London. I only assume it must be relatively nearby because Weber needs to have been able to get there fairly quickly, even if he’d only been absent for a day or two in a row. But that’s not factoring the possibility that this was all prerecorded.”

“Shit,” Roxy muttered.

Merlin sighed. “Shit’s right. But our priority right now is Eggsy. Roxy, I’m sending you to where the email was sent from. Harry, I’m sending you to where the video told you to meet them. Most likely, they will concentrate their efforts on capturing you, considering you are the person they expected to lure in with this. But we _cannot risk capture_. Not of anyone. I’ll have a cab ready for each of you by 0600, but they’ll drop each of you off at your locations and then leave. You’ll be on your own for the duration of the mission. They’ll be standing by to pick you up once you’ve completed them.”

“And if we need to get out?” Roxy asked quietly. “If there is a chance of capture if we continue?”

Merlin’s voice was harsh, cold. “Then get the fuck out.”

 _Get out of there if you’re in danger_ , it meant _. Even if it means leaving Eggsy behind_. Harry knew he couldn’t. He knew that Merlin knew he couldn’t, but Merlin was asking it of him anyway.

 _If they get you, you’re dead._ If they were captured, they must do to themselves what Atkins had been so afraid of the others doing to him. They must sooner be dead than available to give any Kingsman secrets away.

They would attempt rescue, but that came second to preserving Kingsman’s safety.

Harry met Roxy’s eyes. Their gazes held for a long moment, and then Harry broke it first. “Right. Got it.”

“Sending the building plans now,” Percival said.

“Got them,” Roxy said. The plans hovered in green over the projection site, and a small notification in the corner of Harry’s glasses told him that the files had been sent to each of them individually as well. Still, it would be important to study the plans here before they left; Harry didn’t want his vision unnecessarily obscured during the mission by the image of a floorplan he hadn’t yet memorized.

The next two hours were, as Merlin had said, dedicated to Harry and Roxy carefully learning the floorplan of the buildings they would be entering, determining where Weber, Loussac, and Eggsy were likely to be, and coming up with a plan. There wasn’t much to go on, but they did the best they could.

It had to be enough.

Harry refused to think about the alternative.

“The cabs will be there in about thirteen minutes,” Merlin said, at about a quarter to six. “Galahad, it will be another seven to get to your location, and I’ll cover you. Lancelot, another twelve for you, so you take the first cab. You’re with Percival. And both of you know that I have no idea what you’ll be getting into, yes?”

“Understood,” Roxy said tersely. She was checking her weapons, making sure her guns were loaded and polished, making sure the blades of her knives were sharp and slipped smoothly out of their sheaths, making sure her watch, the Kingsman-issue lighter grenade, her signet ring, were all in working order.

Harry did the same.

His hands shook, a little.

When the cabs showed up, one a few minutes after the other, both of them were ready.

“Take them alive, if you can,” Merlin said quietly, as Harry’s cab pulled away from the curb. A soft reminder, a gentle prod. _Focus on the mission._

He was a spy. His job was to protect the greater good, to keep order in the world, and he needed to focus on the greater use of a live hostage instead of his burning desire for revenge, to kill the man who hurt the people he loved.

He needed to stay in control.

He needed to stay strong.

If it came to it, he needed to be able to leave Eggsy behind.

 

 

 

“Lancelot, I’m here. What’s your ETA?” Harry said quietly, as the cab came to a stop outside the old building that Eggsy was being held in. The engine purred quietly as he stepped out.

“There was an accident, so I’m a little behind,” Roxy answered. “Give me another minute.”

They needed to enter the buildings at the same time, or Garlon’s men posted at Roxy’s location could get a warning from Garlon’s men at Harry’s location when Harry entered into their building, or vice versa. Harry stood by the curb as the cab pulled away, studying the floor plan that Merlin had sent one last time before heading in. It was simple; a standard small apartment setup with three floors, a basement, and two entrances, one at the front of the building and one that lead out to a clearing behind the building – probably an old parking lot.

“I’m here,” Roxy said tersely.

“Right. Both of you are green to go,” Merlin said.

Harry’s front door was unlocked; Roxy’s was as well, but he could hear the rumble of the door scraping against the ground as she pushed it open. There would be no quiet entrances for her.

Harry stepped into the apartment cautiously; the lights were off, but the dawn was bright enough for him to see. The kitchen was empty, the stove rusted and some of the cabinet doors hanging open on crooked hinges. The sink was stained, the windows broken. Several of the doors leading to bedrooms were closed, some partially open, and the frames were warped. Paint chipped and peeled off of the walls, and as he looked around, he heard a slight creak upstairs.

<Up?>

“It’s probably Weber,” Merlin agreed quietly. “But be careful. Watch for trip wires.”

_Weber. Eggsy._

Anger.

Harry headed towards the back of the building where the stairwell was, the floorboards squeaking under his feet with every step. In the still silence of the morning, there was no doubt Weber would hear him if he didn’t already know Harry was here.

And then –

On something that he would probably call instinct, Harry whirled around, throwing himself to the side just in time to miss a knife hurled at his face. It lodged itself firmly into the wall behind him as a man – Weber – lunged at him from behind one of the half-open doors.

Harry dodged Weber’s first punch, but he had never seen the man fight before, and his speed took him off guard; Weber’s other fist landed solidly on Harry’s ribs, knocking the breath out of him. He gasped, stumbling, another hit to his stomach sending him to his knees.

“Harry!” Merlin said sharply.

“Fuck,” Harry spat. He pushed himself out of the way in time to avoid another one of Weber’s knives; the man was just slightly off-balance for just a moment, and Harry stuck his foot behind Weber’s heel, knocking his feet out from under him. It wasn’t the cleanest move, and gentlemen certainly rarely resorted to tripping, but if the situation called for it – well.

Harry already had his knife in hand and he slashed downwards; it bit, drawing blood from the forearm Weber had thrown up to protect himself with. Weber rolled and sprung to his feet, panting as he stood two meters away.

“The invisible knight,” Harry said, mockingly. “The man who took out so many innocent people. I must say I was disappointed when we realized it was you; I expected someone with your kill count to pose more of a challenge to me one-on-one.”

Weber cocked his head. He didn’t seem remotely bothered by the blood dripping down his hand. “Invisible knight, you said? Sorry, don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s not me.”

Harry bristled. “Don’t try me.”

“No, really,” Weber said. “That’s not me. I’m not this invisible knight you’re after. I might work with him, though, and you might’ve met him. You’ll see him again soon enough if you get past me, and you can thank him yourself for putting that bullet through Atkins’s head.”

“It’s possible he’s telling the truth,” Merlin said quietly in his ear. “We never knew for sure if Garlon was Weber, we just thought it the most likely possibility.”

“Gaz,” Harry realized.

Weber’s lips curved in a smile. “Yeah. _He’s_ the trap, not me. I know I can’t beat you, but he can. And the way he got you here? The video? It was his idea. I’m good, I’m smart, but he’s brilliant. You can’t tell me he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

_The video. Eggsy._

And suddenly, Harry didn’t care that Gaz was Garlon, because even if it had been Gaz’s idea, Weber had been the one torturing Eggsy. Weber was the one who had hurt him.

“Where is he?” Harry demanded.

“Dear little Eggy, you mean?”

Harry hissed. “What have you –”

“Oh, darling, don’t you worry,” Weber said, still smiling. Smirking. “I’ve had my fun with him.”

“You piece of _shit_ ,” Harry snarled, and lunged. “Where is he?” Weber dodged his knife, pulling out a gun and shooting; the bullet, shot almost point-blank, hit Harry’s ribs again and pain flared, sharply enough that he gasped and fell to his knees again. Fractures, most likely; he’d experienced enough of them to know. And pain. _Fuck_ , the pain –

“Focus, Harry,” Merlin said sharply. “Kill him if you need to.”

“Does it matter? You’ll be dead soon enough,” Weber said, almost casually, and the searing in Harry’s side meant that it took a few moments for him to register the words. He was coming towards Harry, holding something in his other hand that was buzzing and crackling – a taser, maybe, to knock him out –

Merlin’s voice, almost scared. “Harry!”

_The pain –_

His fingers found the grip of his gun. He pulled it out, pointed it vaguely upwards and in front of him, and pulled the trigger.

Two bangs; one from his gun, one from Weber’s. Weber’s went off as he fell, the bullet sailing far to Harry’s right and tearing through the paint-chipped wall. Harry’s went off at just the right time, just the right angle, hitting Weber in the chest.

Near his heart.

Too near his heart.

_Eggsy –_

No, he needed to stay alive, he needed to tell Harry where Eggsy was –

Through the glasses, he heard gunshots. Roxy and Loussac.

No. He had to focus on his mission.

“Where is he?” Harry demanded; pain flared as he forced himself to move to Weber’s side. “Goddamn you, where are you keeping him?”

Weber laughed; the sound bubbled in his throat, and when he spoke his voice was thick, slurred. He was already on the verge of unconsciousness; Harry’s bullet must have hit an artery, he must already be bleeding out –

But he spoke, even if the words were slurred, almost incoherent. “Ah, why not.” He coughed, bringing a hand up to point at some point at the back of the apartment. “’E’s out back.”

Harry clenched his jaw.

“Good luck,” Weber mumbled, a smirk still on his face, and then he was dead.

“Back lot, I’m assuming,” Merlin said tersely. “And we can assume Gaz is there too.”

“I’ll kill him,” Harry spat.

“ _No_ ,” Merlin said sharply. “Kill him if you need to, but get him alive if you can. We need info.”

Harry hissed. He heaved himself to his feet, biting down a grimace, pushing down the pain. He couldn’t let that distract him if Gaz still stood between him and Eggsy.

“Upstairs first,” Merlin said. “We thought it was Weber up there, but it might be Gaz. You need to take him out before you head out to the back lot; it’s too exposed.”

Harry bit down his protest; he knew Merlin’s words made sense. There was no use in finding Eggsy if Gaz could just shoot them both down from a window, so he stepped over Weber’s body and headed to the back of the building. The door was closed but unlocked, and he headed cautiously upwards.

The first floor was empty. So was the second, and the basement. Most of the windows on the first floor were broken; the breeze coming in through them had been pushing an open door back and forth, causing the creaking he’d heard earlier.

“He’s not here,” Harry spat. “Either Weber was lying or he’s outside. We’re running out of time.”

“We have time,” Merlin said. “We have hours. You’re here as they expected you to be, and it wouldn’t make sense for them to bring you here if Weber didn’t expect to be able to beat you. Gaz _must_ be around somewhere.”

Harry was barely listening. “He said Eggsy was in the back,” he said, and he headed towards the stairs.

“Harry, you _need to locate Gaz_. You _cannot_ go out there completely uncovered! It’s too risky!”

“Gaz is out there,” Harry said, almost feverishly. “He’s not in here, so he must be outside somewhere. That means he’s with Eggsy, and –” He broke off with a hiss, pressing his hand to the sharp pain in his side.

“Harry, your ribs,” Merlin said gently.

“Fuck my ribs,” Harry snarled. He needed to get to Eggsy. The thought consumed him as he headed back up to the ground floor as fast as he could. _Eggsy_ , he thought, like a chant in the back of his mind, as if repeating the boy’s name over and over would ensure that he was alright. Weber’s smile, that smirk – it was as if he had been laughing at the emotion Harry had so easily and obviously betrayed, at the fact that Harry loved the boy he was holding hostage –

_He has to be alive._

Harry burst out the back door, ignoring Merlin’s cry to be careful, and there he was, just as Weber said.

Eggsy.

The boy’s name slipped out from between his lips; relieved, almost exuberant with the realization that his worst fears hadn’t come to pass.

If it hadn’t been for his ribs, he would’ve laughed; Eggsy was alright. Harry couldn’t tell how bruised and beaten he was under his clothes, but he was standing, he was alive, everything was okay.

But –

No, he realized, something was off. Where was Gaz? Gaz had been the trap, Weber had said that Harry would be meeting him soon enough, but it was an open clearing and Eggsy was the only one to be seen, the only heat signature in the area. And as for Eggsy himself, it wasn’t right. Eggsy was –

Eggsy wasn’t tied up. He wasn’t strung up on a pole, wasn’t chained by the wrists and ankles, wasn’t remotely hostage-like, and didn’t look remotely surprised to see him. It had almost been like he’d been _expecting_ him. And – was that – no, that wasn’t, that _couldn’t_ –

Eggsy was holding a gun, and it was pointed directly at Harry.

In his ear, Merlin drew in a sharp breath. “Oh, Harry…”

At that moment, Harry felt like his world had fallen apart. The smile that had been so ready to rise up at the sight of the boy he loved – the boy he’d thought he’d lost, that he’d found again after two years and who was still alive, so beautifully alive – sank and fell and was buried with confusion, with grief, with a piercing pain, because it suddenly made sense, and it hit him like a freight train, and it almost threw him to his knees.

Because suddenly he understood, and he felt like the truth was killing him.

 _Gaz_ , he almost laughed. A nickname for Gary.  _Gary. Eggsy. Gary “Eggsy” Unwin. I should’ve seen it._

But how could he have seen something like this? 

“Eggsy,” he whispered again, and it was pained this time, so that it was like a dead man had spoken. It hurt, more than the bullet in his side, and it hurt everywhere. He hoped that the boy would hear him, that he would realize that it was Harry, that he would snap out of whatever he was in, that it would become clear that this was all a mistake. He hoped someone else would reveal themselves, that Eggsy would turn out to just be a diversion, framed for someone else’s sins. But Eggsy saw him, and he didn’t move, and his expression didn’t change. And no one stepped out of the shadows.

So that was it, Harry realized, with first a sense of overwhelming dread and despair, and then a feeling of devastated, quiet acceptance. If this was it, if this is what the truth was, he had to complete the mission. It didn’t matter who it was. So he swallowed down his love, steeled himself until he’d convinced himself he felt nothing, and then he was the perfect Kingsman agent again, the best to have ever been in their ranks, the most elite of spies to have graced their halls, nothing more than a machine.

 _Eggsy_ , he thought, and raised his gun in answer.

 _I love you_ , he thought, and told himself he didn’t feel it.

He didn’t think he’d had the strength to do it.

In his ear, he heard Merlin quietly relaying the news to Percival. The words shook him to his core, shattering his conviction that he had control over his life, confirmed that the pain of betrayal was so much more terrible than he could have ever thought possible. The words made it real, and Harry hated everything for it.

“ _We found Garlon. It wasn’t Weber.”_

 _I loved you_ , he thought, and he looked Eggsy in the eye and saw the confirmation of truth there.

“It was you,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The backstory to what was revealed in the last chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for domestic abuse, violence.

**A little more than 2 years before present day**

EGGSY

 

The amnesia dart never came.

 

 

Eggsy slid the key into the keyhole of his mum’s flat forty minutes after leaving Harry’s flat for the last time and was immediately met with none other than Dean’s foul breath and a gun pressed to his temple, pushing him back against the door he’d just walked through. _Where and when the fuck did Dean get a gun?_

“Where the _fuck_ were you?” Dean roared.

Eggsy flinched away from him, more to escape the sourness coming from Dean’s mouth than because he was actually afraid of the man. His stepfather’s constant physical abuse hadn’t left him untouched, both physically and mentally, but he had been seventeen when the abuse had started, and he’d learned how to take care of himself. He knew it was nothing like what his baby sister had experienced in the year-and-a-half since she had been born. Nothing like what his mother had experienced at home with the man, since unlike Eggsy she’d had nowhere else to go.

Dean snarled, the smell of alcohol rolling off of him in waves, and pressed the gun in harder.

“I’m talkin’ to you, you fuckin’ mug,” Dean spat. “I asked you where you were! You’ve been gone for weeks and I need that fuckin’ money!”

“Go find yourself another rent-boy,” Eggsy retorted, even as shame flushed his cheeks. _Had Harry known?_

It didn’t matter. He’d never see Harry again.

Dean slapped him, hard enough that his head turned and his scalp scraped painfully where it was pressed against the barrel of the gun, and then closed his fingers around Eggsy’s throat. He was shouting now, screaming. “What the fuck did you say to me?”

Eggsy glared at him, his cheek stinging, and did his best to enunciate. “I said, go find yourself another rent-boy.”

Dean stared at him incredulously, and then began laughing. It was a harsh, ugly sound, and Eggsy winced as the foul breath hit him again. “D’you hear him, Michelle?” he cackled, and Eggsy’s heart missed a beat. His mother was home, and that meant his sister was home too. His sister, who wasn’t even two years old. His sister, who was helpless.

“D’you hear him?” Dean repeated gleefully. “See how ‘e’s talkin’! ‘E’s too good for us now, is he?” And then he turned back to face Eggsy, and the smile dropped from his face. “But ‘e’s back now. Lost that posh ol’ job o’ yours, have you? Your boss won’t miss you now, would he, if I just killed you right here? No one would notice.”

 _But I would_. The memory of Harry’s voice rang out sharp and clear in Eggsy’s mind. And surely he would notice, even if no one else did, even if Eggsy wasn’t going to have anything else to do with Kingsman for the rest of his life. Harry would notice if he disappeared.

“And I can do without you,” Dean hissed. “Sure, you brought in money fuckin’ all them people out there on the streets, but so can your dear mum. And so can your dear sister, when she gets a little older. I can pimp ‘em out too, you’ll see.”

For a moment, Eggsy actually saw red. “Don’t you dare,” he snarled, and he felt like there was fire in his veins.

“Don’t talk back to me!” Dean yelled, pushing the gun harder into Eggsy’s temple where a bruise was already blossoming. “Don’t you fuckin’ talk back to me, or I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains out!”

“Leave him alone!”

Eggsy felt his blood freeze. His mother stood in the doorway to the bedroom, holding a knife out in front of her. Daisy was peeking out from behind the door, her eyes wide and frightened, her thumb glistening with spit but slid out of her mouth with shock.

Slowly, Dean turned around.

“Leave my son alone,” Michelle repeated, and Eggsy could hear her voice shaking, could see the tremble in her grip.

“I’ll kill you instead,” Dean spat, turning the gun towards her.

Eggsy was immensely grateful that the amnesia dart hadn’t hit him before this point, because what he did next was all thanks to his Kingsman training. He knocked Dean’s hand away from his throat and lunged forward, ramming his shoulder hard into Dean’s diaphragm as he grabbed Dean’s gun arm and pulled it towards him. The blow to Dean’s chest stunned him, loosening his grip on the gun, and Eggsy deftly plucked it from his limp fingers as he let Dean fall to the ground.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Eggsy said, and pointed the gun at Dean’s head.

 

 

 

**Two years later, June 16 2016**

 

Eggsy gazed out the open window of the cab, grinning and waving at his mum and baby sister in her arms. Except his name wasn’t Eggsy, anymore, not really. He was allowed to respond to it for the sake of keeping his family in the dark, but the word ‘Eggsy’ was supposed to be just a sound to him. He wasn’t supposed to let himself think otherwise.

He was A597-3 now.

He still thought of himself as Eggsy though, when he could. He had to. It let him remember Harry and the love he’d felt for him, remember the fondness in Harry’s voice as he said his name. It gave him the illusion that he didn’t belong completely to Ross Merkel, that there was still a part of him deep inside that was still free.

“Come and visit us again soon, love, yeah?” his mother called, as snow fell in a soft blanket all around them, muffling their voices. It was eerily silent, as if his mother had spoken to him from far away.

“Of course, Mum,” Eggsy replied, and winked at his sister, who giggled. “Soon as I can get off work again.”

His mother sighed, but smiled. “Right, love. You tell your boss I demand he give you more days off, hear? Unless he wants to get a piece of my mind. Once every two months just isn’t enough.”

Eggsy laughed. “I’ll let ‘im know.”

“Good. Well, ‘bye then, darling. Don’t want to make you late for your meeting with that businessman.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t get any more days off if I missed it. ’Bye, Mum. See you, Daisy.” He blew a kiss at them, rolled up the window, and watched them disappear from view behind the tinted glass.

The cab pulled away from the curb, tires screeching. Eggsy sat back and took a deep breath, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the headrest.

The memories flooded back. They always did before he killed.

 

 

_Eggsy turned down the street towards his house. It had been five hours since he’d confronted Dean, since he’d pointed Dean’s own gun in his face and told the man to stay away from him and his mum and sister. “You will never touch them again,” he’d said. “You will leave me alone, you will leave my mum alone, you will leave my sister alone. If you come back, I’ll kill you.”_

_The man had left, in a panic and cursing wildly, and once he’d gone Eggsy had left the house. To cool down, he’d told himself, to clear his head._

“ _You’ve got quite the skills.”_

_Eggsy started, looking over to where a hooded man leaned against the tree._

“ _Yes, you.”_

_The voice was deep, distorted. Electronic. And yet, it still managed to sound almost amused. As Eggsy watched, the corner of the man’s sleeve flickered. A hologram, he realized. The man wasn’t actually there._

_Eggsy’s eyes narrowed, his heartrate jacking up a beat. Who the fuck was this guy? Certainly not Kingsman; Harry would never do this to him. Harry would give him the honor of darting him discreetly. Perhaps while he was asleep, so he wouldn’t see it coming, wouldn’t have to go through the agony of the goodbye again._

_He wouldn’t do something like this._

“ _Good,” the man murmured, almost to himself. “Exactly what I hoped for.”_

“ _Who the fuck are you?” Eggsy demanded._

“ _I’ve been watching you,” the man said, with no regard for Eggsy’s question. His face was hidden in the darkness of his hood, and Eggsy could just barely make out the shadow of stubble on his chin. His voice crackled briefly with static. “I saw your files from the Marines. Top marks. Thought I could use someone like you to work for me, and that was confirmed when I saw what you did to Dean Anthony Baker just now. Excellent reflexes, beating a man with a gun with no weapon of your own. Fearless, too, until it came to actually killing him. You hesitated to pull the trigger.”_

_Eggsy stiffened but was silent. Was that a bad thing, to hesitate to kill? Dean was an abusive prick, sure, but that wasn’t something that he needed to die for._

“ _I can help you with that,” the man said._

“ _I don’t need your help,” Eggsy bit out before he could help himself. And he didn’t. Just because he had morals didn’t mean he wasn’t willing to kill when necessary._

“ _Let me rephrase that.” The man straightened, and Eggsy felt his body moving in response, muscles flexing to slip him into a defensive stance even though he knew it was just a projection, that it couldn’t really hurt him. The shadows of the man’s face shifted; he was smiling._

“ _Good reflexes,” he commented, but didn’t approach. “As I was saying, let me rephrase my initial statement. It was not a request. It was an order. You will come with me and I will train you, or your dear mother and sister will have their brains blown out in approximately ninety seconds by the snipers I have trained on their location. And if you still don’t cooperate, the same fate awaits several of your dear friends. Thank your stepfather for supplying me with names. You see, Gary – or should I say Eggsy? You do prefer Eggsy, yes? Not that it matters, anyway, once you work for me you’ll have a new name.”_

_Eggsy’s blood turned ice in his veins. “What did you do to them?” he asked hoarsely. All sensation fled from his fingers as fear flooded his body, turning his limbs to lead. The lack of guarantee to his own life was something he could deal with; the safety of his family was a whole other story._

“ _They’re fine for now. I asked you a question.”_

“ _I – yes,” Eggsy said._

“ _Eggsy.” The man’s smile widened. “Beautiful. Good boy, Eggsy. I own exactly five hundred ninety-six assets with the same qualities you possess. Skill with weapons, quick reflexes, good instincts, a certain familiarity with death – that last one is something I will train in you. All in all, an ability to be turned into a remarkably efficient weapon. I used to own six hundred. I have been looking for individuals to replace the four that I have recently lost to an unfortunate and inevitably unsuccessful attempt at subordination, and I believe you to be a fitting candidate.”_

“ _No,” Eggsy said hoarsely. Weapons, the man had said? Human weapons?_

_The man tsked. “Think carefully, Eggsy. You can either amicably agree to come with me and save your mother and sister’s lives, or you can refuse and sentence them to death in approximately five seconds, after which I will take you with me by force.”_

“ _Five seconds – no, you fucking tell me where they are –”_

“ _Two seconds.”_

“ _Wait – no –”_

“ _One –”_

“ _Yes,” Eggsy blurted out, dropping to his knees and raising his trembling hands above his head. His heart raced, beating a desperate staccato rhythm against his ribs as if it would burst out of his chest at any moment. “Yes, anything, just please don’t hurt them –”_

_The man’s grin widened, and Eggsy saw a flash of teeth. “Good boy,” he purred. “Now that all of this unpleasantness is over, we may proceed with introductions. You will know me as Ross Merkel. You are to address me with ‘sir,’ and you may speak only when instructed to do so. Your family will be relocated to one of my properties, and you are to tell them that it is a benefit of your newfound employment, which you will describe as an extension of your previous time at the Marines, which you rejoined soon after dropping out. You will explain, if asked, that you did so without telling your mother to avoid worrying her. Classified information now, of course. From now on you are to do as I say, and your family will remain unharmed.”_

 

 

The cab turned sharply around the corner, its wheels narrowly missing the curb. The driver accelerated down the street, the sound of the cab’s roaring engine bouncing off the brick walls of the narrow flats and echoing back to Eggsy’s ears.

“Big mission,” the driver said. Eggsy would have called his tone amicable if he didn’t know that the driver was another one of Ross’s assets, sent here under the weak pretense of providing transportation, to watch him and kill him if he deviated from orders. Nothing atypical, really; Eggsy had done the same before. “How are you feeling? Excited?”

Nothing, Eggsy realized. The thought didn’t affect him in the slightest. He was numb. Ross had beaten everything else out of him.

 

 

“ _What are you?” Ross asked, and his voice was low, smooth over the speakers. Slick with danger and the promise of pain should he answer incorrectly. A597-3, Ross wanted to hear. Asset number five hundred ninety-seven, third replacement. The other man in the room with Eggsy was another of Ross’s assets, number A005-0. The first asset numbered five. The original. Later, Eggsy would learn that his name was Patrick Weber._

“ _Answer me,” Ross said, without malice._

“ _Eggsy,” Eggsy said, and squeezed his eyes shut as A005-0’s whip descended over his back once again._

 

 

 

Kingsman, Merlin, Roxy, Harry. It was all like a dream.

 

 

 

The cab stopped at the end of the long, winding driveway. He stepped out and closed the door behind him, and the cab sped away. The driver – A295-0, according to his uniform – would return shortly. He wasn’t worried. He walked up the driveway almost casually towards the target’s mansion, decorated lavishly with gold and silver and pearls and marble. All bought with money gained through honest means, according to the facts in the file, but Ross wanted them dead nonetheless.

He didn’t question it. It wasn’t his place to.

No, his job was to empty the family safe. Others were taking care of the target’s bank account; at this point, it would be in the process of being emptied into one of Ross’s.

His lip curled. Another mission, about to be successfully completed.

 

 

“ _What are you?” Ross asked, and despite the fact that he’d been asking the same question four times an hour for thirteen hours a day for one-hundred forty-six days, his voice still sounded exactly the same as it had the first time. Distantly, he wondered if it was a recording._

_He bit his tongue to stop himself from answering and couldn’t hold back a scream as the punishing brand was pressed into the front of his shoulder. Steam and the scent of blistering flesh filled his lungs, choking him, burning his eyes._

“ _What are you?” Ross asked again, through the screams. “Answer me.”_

_It was the one-hundred forty-seventh day, and he cracked._

“ _A597-3,” he said, and the pain stopped._

 

 

The smell of gunpowder floated through the air as A597-3 swept his gaze over the bodies of the target and his wife and son, each fallen to the ground with a hole in their right cheek and smiles still on their faces. The gunshots had been almost silent thanks to Ross’s tech; just a sharp pop, a hiss, music to his ears, so quiet that the sound of the splintering glass of the dining room window had been many times louder. They had never seen him coming and were dead before they’d had a chance to realize what was happening.

He afforded them this small mercy, at least. Perhaps it was the small shred of humanity left inside of him, the discomfort in the back of his mind that the remnants of his sanity provided him with when he failed to kill quickly. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

A597-3 made his way to the front door. A few moments fiddling with the lock and it popped open, and he let himself in. His mask was pulled up over his mouth and nose; he knew to avoid the ever-curious gaze of cameras, but he wasn’t willing to take a chance that he was caught off-guard and one of them managed to catch a glimpse of his face.

The safe was located in a separate, hidden room connected to the target’s office. It wasn’t hard to find; pull the top of the spine of the book fifth from the left on the third shelf from the bottom, and the bookshelf would swing inwards towards a large armored room, in the middle of which stood another large locked safe. A scan with the scanning tech surgically implanted in his retina made quick work of it; the access code popped up in light blue in front of his eyes.

He punched in the numbers; the safe swung open with a light hiss. A597-3 emptied its contents into his briefcase, stood, and left.

Except for the three bodies now face-down in their dinner, the small holes in the window, and the empty safe, everything was left exactly as it was.

 

 

 

“Welcome back, A597-3,” Ross murmured when he returned to rendezvous point half an hour later. His voice crackled from hidden speakers, located in various places around the old building so it sounded like it came from everywhere. The effect was disorienting. “The money?”

A597-3 knelt and lay the briefcase flat on the ground. He flipped it open, revealing stacks of bills he’d removed from the target’s safe and the three large, perfectly cut gemstone necklaces that had likely been family heirlooms.

“Wonderful,” Ross hissed. “All this money…good work. Neatly done and in record time, too, I’m quite impressed.”

A597-3 was silent. It wasn’t his place to speak. It wasn’t his place to think.

“Mission complete, A597-3. You may return to your quarters, and you will be informed of your new mission within the next forty-eight hours. Dismissed.”

 

 

 

“ _I know it’s harsh,” Ross said. His voice was low, almost soothing, as A597-3 lay curled on the new bed in the new room he’d been given (new name, new room), his entire body aching, his shoulder on fire with the fresh wound and the scabs on his back cracking with every movement._

“ _But it’s necessary,” Ross continued. “You know this, don’t you? You know that all you had to do was to do as I asked, but you didn’t, so I had to punish you. I only want what’s best for you, A597-3. It’s harsh now, but you will be better off in the long run, when you come to understand that I’m only doing this for your own good. You’re only safe, and your family is only safe, if you do as I ask, and if you understand that I only do this because I care for you. I am the_ only _one who cares for you, A597-3. You must understand this.”_

_Eggsy – no, he was A597-3 now – didn’t respond._

“ _I am the only one who cares about you, A597-3,” Ross repeated, and distantly, A597-3 admired his patience, for having put up with him for one hundred forty-seven days without even a hint of anger. “You cannot rely on anyone else. Everyone you thought loved you has abandoned you.”_

_He refused to think about Kingsman, about Harry. There was no way they could’ve known, right? There was no way any of them could’ve known that he was here, with Ross, his skin broken over and over again, cut into with knives, burned with hot irons, laid open with a whip. He had failed their test, shown them that he wasn’t worthy to be one of them, and that had been that. There shouldn’t have been any more to it._

_They would have stopped caring about him the moment he walked out of their doors._

_Maybe Ross was right._

“ _Say it out loud,” Ross said quietly._

Harry, _he thought, and he felt his chest clench in pain. Surely Harry was an exception, surely Harry still cared for him and would have come for him if only he’d known _–__

“ _Say it,” Ross said again, with all the patience he always had._

“ _You…” He trailed off, swallowed, started again. “You do this because you care about me.”_

“ _Because I am the_ only _one who cares,” Ross said. “Say it.”_

_A deep breath, a few moments of silence, and then the words that Ross made him say, over and over again, every night until he believed it._

“ _You are the only one who cares about me.”_

 

 

 

The next mission came within two days as promised. A597-3 saw the approach of the messenger outside his door through the small vertical window and stood to retrieve the piece of paper that had been slipped under. The messenger would inform Ross that the message had been delivered, and the now-familiar hologram of Ross’s head appeared over the projector on his small desk after A597-3 pressed a button to confirm that he had received the message on his end. The projection wasn’t really of Ross’s head, of course, just as the man’s name wasn’t really Ross Merkel; it couldn’t be. It was simply a stolen identity of a man long since dead, an identity that they all believed because they were expected to.

“Your next target is an organization,” Ross said, his voice crackling slightly. “Came under our radar – oh, about two years ago, a little while after you came to us. They brought down a man who I hoped would be an ally, if I could have convinced him to see my problem. He thought in a similar way as I did, and he wasn’t afraid to do whatever it took to accomplish his goal. The greater good in the long run, you know. And his assistant would have been most useful to me. Unfortunately, I have reason to believe that _we_ are now under the radar of this organization as well, and I want that threat eliminated immediately.”

A597-3 looked at the name on the paper, scrawled in Ross’s own spidery hand. A single word this time, not even a first and last name, and then suddenly A597-3 felt like the breath had been kicked out of him, and he took a step back, flinched away from the paper in his hands.

It was the name of an organization, but it wasn’t just any organization.

It was Kingsman.

A597-3 knew he should be feeling something; indeed, he felt something dangerously like horror pulling at his chest, something dangerously like pain and regret nudging insistently at his mind. _Kingsman._ And suddenly, the numbness of A597-3 fell away and he became Eggsy Unwin again.

Ross raised an eyebrow. “You know of them.” It wasn’t a question.

Eggsy swallowed hard and tried to keep his voice even when he responded. “I…I’ve heard the name. I thought it was a tailor shop?” _Savile Row. Harry._

_Oh God._

Distantly, beneath the horror and nauseating dread of what he knew Ross was expecting him to do, he felt a quiet triumph, a blazing pride.

_They did it. Harry did it. They brought down Valentine._

But it was overwhelming. Ross hadn’t known of his connections to Kingsman, so it was the one thing Ross hadn’t beaten out of him, hadn’t punished him for caring about. Kingsman, and Harry. All of the pain that came with Eggsy’s memories of his family, his past life, his friends – none of that pain came with his memories of Kingsman, because Ross hadn’t tried to burn it out of his mind, hadn’t tried to poison it in his memory. He could still think about Harry without also feeling the brand searing his skin, the knife cutting into his flesh, the whip laying his back open.

And yet, it hurt to think of them.

Ross’s eyebrow was still raised. What he said hadn’t been a question, but there was a question behind his words that Eggsy had yet to answer. He hadn’t been fooled.

“I – I’ve seen it a few times, I think,” Eggsy said.

“But that’s not all. You know something. Someone.”

Eggsy swallowed again. “I –” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat.

“An acquaintance? Friend? Lover?”

“No,” Eggsy said quickly. Too quickly. _I wanted him to be_. “Just – someone I met once.” _A few times. It should have been forever._ He blinked hard a few times. _You’re supposed to be A597-3, not Eggsy Unwin. Your loyalty is to Ross; he’s the only one who cares for you, even if you still care about –_

_No. You don’t care. You can’t._

_Think of your family. Keep them safe._

“Mm. More memories to be forgotten?”

Memories of burning, searing pain flashed through Eggsy’s mind, and it took all of his willpower not to flinch away from the hologram, to not close his eyes against an imagined blow, not to let his breath come faster and harsher in sudden panic. _You’re A597-3. You’re not supposed to remember any of that. You’re not supposed to care about any of that. Ross cares for you._ “No. No, sir,” Eggsy said, struggling to keep his voice even. _I’m going to have to kill Harry. I can’t kill Harry. I love –_

He didn’t think he was still capable of love.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir,” Eggsy said. “Kingsman is nothing to me.”

A humorless smile lifted the corners of Ross’s mouth; it was like a wide, ugly slash across his face, and it didn’t reach his eyes. Emotions rarely did. For some reason, Eggsy didn’t think it had to do with the fact that it was all just a simulation, the face of a dead man brought back to life. “Good,” Ross said. “You remember your lessons?”

“Yes, sir,” Eggsy said.

“That’s a good boy,” Ross said, a slight purr in his voice. “Remember, I’m the one who provides for you. I’m the only one who cares for you. You belong to me, yes? You’d do well to remember all of that. And to remember that I still have your mother and sister. Any previous loyalties are to be forgotten. Can I count on you to complete this mission?”

As if he had a choice if he wanted to keep his family safe. He thought of his sister; her smiling, laughing face, her rosy cheeks, still chubby with youth. Small hands reaching up for him when he came to see her, feet tripping over themselves in eagerness.

 _God_ , she was just a child.

He straightened, stood back up, looked the hologram in the eye, and pushed down everything that had made him human.

“Yes, sir,” A597-3 said.

Ross’s smile widened. “Good. You will receive the file within the hour, and you are expected to report to the briefing room at 2000. You will be accompanied on this mission by A130-2, A238-2 and A005-0. You will not fail.” Somehow, through the hologram, Ross was able to achieve the effect of leaning in menacingly. “Destroy them,” he said, and there was almost a hiss to his voice now. “No witnesses. Burn the whole fucking thing to the ground. Do you understand?”

A005-0. The man who had turned him into what he was.

“Yes, sir,” A597-3 said, and his voice was as numb and as dead as Ross wanted it to be.

 

 

 

In the five hundred seventy-two days A597-3 had been an active agent in Ross’s service, the longest he’d had ever taken to complete a mission had been a week, and that was only because a spontaneous vacation happened to take the family out of the country the same day A597-3 had arrived at their home. The extra time had been spent figuring out where their private jet had flown to and getting one of Ross’s jets ready for A597-3 to follow them. But every other mission, a few days tops and it was done. Ross liked him for that; even for the 500’s he was efficient, he was clean. He got things done, and Ross got his money.

But this mission? Taking down Kingsman?

It took longer than a week. Far longer.

And Ross grew impatient.

 

 

 

The first thing that happened was that he shot Merlin.

A597-3 hadn’t really cared about that. A597-3 was numb, emotionless as usual, and nothing he did affected him. But the part of him that was still Eggsy screamed as Merlin fell, felt a crushing pain in his chest as he pulled the trigger, a pain that had nothing to do with the car that careened into the lamppost beside him and caused it to fall against him.

He didn’t really know why he’d shot Merlin. He tried to tell himself that it was because the man was getting too close, or because Ross had ordered him to, but he couldn’t remember. He decided to believe that he was following orders to protect himself, to protect his family, because he couldn’t bring himself to consider the alternative, that he killed because he liked it. Or that he didn’t care who he hurt anymore.

As the weeks passed, he thought about that often.

A597-3 numbed him down. With time, Merlin became just another face, just another one of his and Ross’s victims, gunned down mercilessly.

Just another lifetime of guilt that he couldn’t feel. He already had sixty-six lifetimes of guilt, from the sixty-six people he’d already shot from his two years in Ross’s service. What was one more on top of that?

He thought about how fucked in the head he was, to think like that.

He thought about his own death, too, as the mission dragged on. He knew Ross’s expectations, and he knew he wasn’t meeting them. He knew that if he failed to prove useful, Ross might as well dispose of him. Or worse, he would hurt his family, held hostage miles away. He would deserve it, A597-3 thought, for letting Ross down. Letting down the only person who cared for him, who looked after him.

A130-2, A238-2 and A005-0, the other three of Ross’s agents assigned to this mission, were good at what they did. He’d already met A005-0 before, when Ross had first taken him. A005-0 had been the one to beat the Eggsy out of him, to turn him into A597-3. He thought A005-0 had held a grudging respect for him, after that. For having seen how long Eggsy had been able to hold out.

He learned that their names were Jean Loussac, Andy Atkins, and Patrick Weber, respectively. They learned that his name was Gaz. Even with A597-3 dominating his personality, pushing the humanity and emotion of Eggsy back down, he couldn’t bear to have them call him Eggsy, to have that name, which had been tied so closely with his family, with Kingsman, with Harry, to be more fouled by their lips than it already was. So he told them Gaz, for Gary, and hoped that if Kingsman heard his name, they wouldn’t make the connection.

Kingsman thought Harry had darted him, after all. To them, Eggsy Unwin knew nothing about Kingsman. He would be nothing more than a college dropout, a Marines dropout, a Kingsman failure, a common thug who had once had so much promise but who had let them all down. Nothing like what his father had been: a good, brave man to his very core.

(Eggsy had thought himself good, once. But how could he call himself good now?)

He knew who Kingsman’s agents were even before he’d gotten word from Weber at the pub. He’d known they’d send their best agents after him once they’d learned of Merlin’s death, so he hadn’t been surprised when Harry Hart and Roxy Morton showed up in Kensington a few days after him.

It still hurt, though, to see them, despite A597-3 trying to keep him numb, indifferent. To know that this would have to end with either them or Eggsy dead. He wondered if it would hurt Harry, then, to let Harry see him leave a pastry shop one morning two weeks after the confrontation began.

He let Harry see him. He made it seem casual, like nothing more than coincidence, but he watched, and then he knew it had hurt Harry. He saw the man falter, and he’d known that, even if Harry’s feelings for him had faded after so long, he still remembered, and perhaps still cared, a bit.

Because deep down, the part that was Eggsy still knew that Harry had cared for him, at some point. Ross had turned him into A597-3, and A597-3 was loyal to Ross, and A597-3 believed that Ross was indeed the only person to care for him, but somewhere, somehow, the part of him that was Eggsy remained untouched. The memory of what he and Harry had shared, even if unspoken until just before the very end and even if it must have been long since faded, remained unspoiled by Ross’s poison.

He just couldn’t get to that part of himself. It would be dangerous to be in touch with emotion right now, as it had been for the past many months with Ross, working for him, being loyal too him. He thought it might break him if he let himself think too much, if he let himself remember how to feel, so he didn’t.

Instead, he focused on the mission.

He hoped that seeing him might spur Harry and Kingsman into action. He hoped that Harry, not knowing of Eggsy’s role with Ross and thus worrying for his safety, would do something to try and end the mission quickly, to get Ross’s men out of the area and away from Eggsy as fast as he could, to protect him.

He should’ve known better, he thought, when nothing happened. It had been two years, and it was foolish to assume Harry still cared about him enough for it to override his Kingsman’s logic to wait, to be patient, to carry out the mission as if there were no external factors like the presence a boy he had once loved.

But maybe…perhaps…

If Harry did still care for him, even if just a little bit and even if just in memory and even despite Ross’s words, that was a weakness.

He shook his head sharply. He couldn’t do that yet, not to Harry. So he tucked the piece of information away carefully, deep into the back of his mind, and hoped he would never have to use it.

Harry and Roxy were, unquestionably, Kingsman’s best agents. Loussac, Atkins, and Weber were among Ross’s best. They were wary of each other, not knowing the full extent of each other’s abilities, and when yet another week passed with nothing accomplished Ross gave him a warning. Just a single, short phrase on the morning of July 12, slipped under their door.

_I’m waiting._

A597-3 clenched his jaw.

He knew Kingsman would be impatient. They, too, were used to quick missions. If their external bugs weren’t getting them anywhere, they’d resort to something more foolproof.

“Gel trackers,” he said one night. He was crouched on the fire escape of an old apartment, speaking through an earpiece to the three other agents. “They’re probably going to go for gel trackers. Keep an eye out for any packages they might get. It’s designed to be ingested, so they’ll try and sneak it in through a food source.”

“Fuck. We order shit all the time,” Weber said.

“No. No, that’s good,” A597-3 said. There was a couple walking by on the street below him, holding hands, to engrossed in each other to notice him. The sight of them, oblivious, innocent, blindly in love, tugged at a string of pain deep inside of him, and he fought to push it down. “Keep doin’ that. Act normal. I’ll keep an eye on them and let you know when they’ve slipped it in somewhere.”

“You’ve got something in mind?”

“Yeah.” He was Eggsy again, wishing he could stop hurting. “Yeah, I do.”

He couldn’t believe he was going to destroy everything of the man who had once given everything to him.

 

 

 

Kingsman received a package a week later – a package that, no doubt, contained the gel tracker – and began bugging food suppliers, restaurants, and grocery shops. A week after Kingsman had first gotten the package, two minutes after Loussac ordered something from the pizza place nearby, he saw Roxy and Harry headed out of their apartment.

He called Weber immediately. “Tonight,” he said.

He knew Kingsman would be waiting for an opportunity to ambush them, an opportunity where they would be separated and therefore easier to subdue. His plan consisted of faking a package delivery to a relatively isolated area and separating the other three agents. He hoped that, if Kingsman heard all of this through the gel tracker, it would be a good enough opportunity for them to show up, where the other three of Ross’s agents would be, unbeknownst to Kingsman, prepared for them.

They all understood that Gaz was supposed to be kept hidden for as long as possible. Their advantage was that although the Kingsman agents knew of Gaz’s existence, they didn’t seem to know he was even in the area. He was the hidden backup, an invisible fourth man.

Fitting, since Kingsman had started calling him Garlon, the knight from the Arthurian legends who had the power to turn himself invisible and delighted in spearing other knights when they weren’t looking. Eggsy might not have delighted in spearing other knights, but nevertheless, his mission was to bring down the organization that prided themselves in being the modern knights.

And he could do it. He was smart, he knew he was, the parts of him that were A597-3 and Eggsy Unwin both. He knew he was good at what he did, and he knew he had the ability to come up with something which would bring them down, which was why he was surprised that everything went wrong.

Because the plan was going well – really well, actually – until it stopped going really well and everything went to complete shit.

He’d expected Harry to shoot Atkins to cripple him; all along, that had been A597-3’s intention. Atkins would act as the bait and lure Harry and Roxy out, where Weber and Loussac, assumed by Kingsman to be occupied and therefore ignorant of Atkins’s plight, would actually be ready to take them on. And if Atkins had to play the part of the sacrifice – well. Atkins didn’t need to know that. And in the end, when A597-3 successfully completed another mission and brought the world’s best spy organization to its knees at Ross’s feet, Ross wouldn’t even care that he had cost him an agent.

It had to work. He had to bring Kingsman down. His mother and sister would die if he didn’t.

He kept telling himself that, crouched far enough back on top of the warehouse that Harry and Roxy wouldn’t see him, fighting to keep himself A597-3 for the sake of his family even as the sight of Harry and Roxy threatened to pull Eggsy back up from the depths at which he’d repressed himself. He thought about keeping his family safe as Atkins cried out a warning, as Loussac came running from inside the warehouse, as Weber began to shoot from the fortified car. He thought of his sister, still just a child and living under gunpoint because of him, as Loussac refused to go down under Roxy’s wrath, as Weber’s bullets rained on Harry.

He refused to think about Harry and how much he still loved him. It wasn’t a thought he could afford. He had to finish his mission, and to do that, he couldn’t think about guilt. He couldn’t think about pain.

He had to stay A597-3, and keep his mind focused, and see the mission through to the end. Ross had made it clear that he did not tolerate failure.

And that was when it started to go wrong.

Roxy was fast and strong, and her endurance was unparalleled by anyone he’d ever met. She began to beat Loussac, vicious uppercuts and steel fists driving him back, and he fell under the coldness of her fury. Too late, he saw the watch on her left wrist. Too late, he realized that the dart, previously intended for Atkins, was still perfectly intact and functional. If it found its new mark in Loussac’s neck, it would be Kingsman’s two agents against only Weber and himself. Weber was good, but he wasn’t that good. As for himself –

He was confident that he could hold his own against one of their agents, even if not both. But the bigger concern right now was that Kingsman couldn’t know who he was. He couldn’t allow either of them to see his face.

_Shit._

He had to do something. If Kingsman got Loussac or Atkins now, everything would be lost.

Distraction. Something to catch Kingsman off guard, to disorient them, while he could at least get Loussac out of there quickly. He pulled the flash bombs and smoke grenades out of his backpack, setting off the flash flares and tossing them; the fuse was short, and they exploded with a bang and in a brilliant burst of light a second later. At the same time, he pointed his gun at Atkins, steeling himself against the look of terror on the man’s face, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot echoed through the still morning air.

He refused to think about Atkins. He was a liability if he couldn’t walk, because if he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t fight and defend himself when Kingsman came to claim their hostage. He would hold Ross back, he would hold the mission back, but most importantly, he would be a defenseless mine of Ross’s secrets, and A597-3 couldn’t risk him falling into the wrong hands.

It was all logic, all arithmetic. If one man had to die to serve a larger purpose, it had to be done.

But now wasn’t the time to think about that. Now, the flash bombs hadn’t been enough. By the time Atkins’s head had hit the ground, he’d memorized the locations of Harry, Roxy, and Loussac, pulled the pins on five of his smoke grenades, and tossed them down into the exposed warehouse lot. They were powerful, big, and fast-acting, and within seconds everything was engulfed in smoke.

The entire process had taken less than three seconds.

There was a small overhang over the window he was directly above; he jumped down onto it and swung over the edge, landing lightly on his feet on the ground below and rolling forward to absorb the impact. He darted forward into the cloud, reaching Harry first. He shoved him back, partly to further disorient him if he’d had an idea of where Roxy and Loussac were, partly to get him further away from the central area in case Weber decided to fire into it.

Next were Roxy and Loussac. He’d heard Harry cry out for her, and her answer gave away her position.

“I’m – shit! What the fuck?” she exclaimed, as he pushed her away from Loussac, who had been hit by her dart and had fallen where he stood.

For those few moments, from the time he’d swung off the balcony to the time he’d gotten into Weber’s car, he was Eggsy again. _I’m saving you_ , Eggsy thought to Harry and Roxy, as he heaved up Loussac’s limp form and headed to where Weber was waiting in the car. He knew he could’ve taken either of the Kingsman agents; they had been completely blind, completely at his mercy, and he had let them go. He knew Weber would question him about it later.

He didn’t know how he would respond.

 

 

 

Ross was furious. _Do better_ , was the note slipped under their door the next morning.

The threat was unmistakable, and fear haunted Eggsy’s every step. Not for himself, no, he’d been prepared to die since Ross had taken him. But his mum hadn’t been. His sister hadn’t been. His fear was that he’d fail, and Ross would hurt him, and he’d have to live with the guilt of that for the rest of his life.

His fear was that he hoped they would die, so he could die too, and be free.

Eggsy wondered what Weber and Loussac had at stake.

A597-3 didn’t care.

 

 

 

Kingsman had known already that Ross’s fourth – well, now third – person was Gaz. Now they also knew he was in the area. But, he saw with some satisfaction, the long-range speech-to-text feature of the scanner in his eye coming in quite useful, Kingsman didn’t know anything more than the nickname. They had no idea who Gaz actually was.

A597-3 told Weber and Loussac to start bugging Kingsman.

“What? They’ll think we’re desperate,” Weber snarled.

“So they’ll get overconfident,” A597-3 said. There was something about the coldness and deadness of his voice that discouraged Weber or Loussac from countering him again. “And arrogance leads to mistakes. We’ve made enough mistakes already. Let’s give them their turn.”

 

 

 

Another week.

Kingsman made no mistakes.

He thought about the weakness that only he knew about, the weakness that he knew, if he used against them, could bring them down.

He did nothing.

 

 

 

**Two days before present day, August 10 2016**

 

Ross had never been so angry. Eight more fruitless days had passed since they had resorted to bugging Kingsman in the hopes of flushing them out.

 _48 hours_ , the next note across his eyes read, and he clenched his jaw. There was no question what it meant; he had 48 hours to show that he had made progress with regards to completing the mission, or Michelle and Daisy would be completely at Ross’s mercy, and there was no telling what Ross would do to them.

_Ross cares about me. It’s for my own good._

Eggsy was desperate.

He did what he hadn’t had the strength to do, for the entire past two months.

 _The video_ , he wrote, and he stared hard at the piece of paper until the light in the corner of his vision told him that Ross was watching his feed. _I want to use the video of A005-0 turning me into A597-3 to lure them in._

Six seconds later, a call came in through his earpiece.

“You have information?” Ross asked. His voice crackled with static.

“Yes,” Eggsy said. (He was Eggsy now, not A597-3, because he needed to be. He needed to feel, to use emotions to work through the actions and reactions of what he was planning on doing, because he knew that Harry, at least, would react with emotion, and he needed to understand that with something more than logic, something more than what a simple machine had. And only Eggsy Unwin had emotions, because A597-3 was the machine, completely numb to the world.)

“Will this work?”

Eggsy steeled himself. “Yes,” he said. It had to. Harry still cared about him. Ross hadn’t driven that from Eggsy’s mind.

There was a pause. When Ross spoke again, he sounded amused, but Eggsy could see past that. He knew the fury that lay simmering beneath. “You lied, Eggsy. You said you didn’t know them, but you do.”

Eggsy swallowed. “I know them well enough to know that they wouldn’t want an innocent person to die.”

As far as Kingsman knew, Eggsy Unwin was innocent.

They didn’t need to know otherwise.

Ross made a noise that was almost a laugh. “You know you can’t lie to me, Eggsy. Is this how you repay the person who looks after you? The only person who cares for you?” A pause. “How much of it do you want?”

“A few minutes’ worth, that’s all. Preferably from earlier, and without any questions or demands. It’s gotta look an’ sound like it’s from a few days ago an’ I’m just some poor chav you just picked up off the street an’ beat up.” His voice shook ever so slightly as he spoke. The footage he was looking for existed; he knew it. He remembered too many days of it.

There was a long silence. For a moment, Eggsy thought Ross would deny his request. Then –

“I will send you the files. Do not fail again.”

And that was it. Eggsy let out a shuddering breath, unclenched his fists. He knew Ross would likely have whoever was tailing him watch him even more closely, ready to take him down if he showed any signs of giving Ross away to Kingsman or otherwise betraying him. He knew that if this didn’t work, his family was as good as dead.

It had to work.

The video wasn’t hard to put together. It had taken an hour for Ross to send the files, but he had sent him more than enough, and Eggsy spent the next twelve hours fast-forwarded through the several days’ worth of video until he found a few-minute long segment consisting mostly of Weber alternating between beating him and cutting him with a serrated knife, wordlessly, brutally. It was difficult to watch, and he couldn’t help but slip his hand under his shirt to rest directly against his skin, feeling the rough bumps of the scars Weber had left, trying not to relive the pain, trying not to remember.

When he’d found a segment that he was satisfied would work, he contacted Weber and Loussac to explain the plan.

By then, all shreds of Eggsy were gone. He was fully and completely A597-3 again. Numb, cold, ready to kill, as he always was before a mission.

“I’m going to send the email from a server about twelve, thirteen minutes away from here,” A597-3 said. “Loussac, you are to head to that location in case they’re able to track the signal and decide to ambush us here. Weber, you come with me to the place I’ve specified in the video, about three miles east of where I send the email from. It’s most likely that they will split up, with Harry coming to the specified location an’ Roxanne heading to a tracked location.”

“Copy,” Weber said.

“I’ll be able to see when the email has been opened; when it has, that’ll be the signal for you both to head out. They have until 1100 on the twelfth to show, so be ready anytime.”

The plan finalized, A597-3 headed to the location he would send the email from. He typed it out, attached the video, and sent it to Harry’s personal email, which he still had memorized, along with his personal phone, along with the address of his home. An almost perfectly eidetic memory was useful sometimes, and he knew the man checked his email frequently enough.

Now, all that was left to do was wait.

He flickered between A597-3 and Eggsy, in that wait. Switching constantly between the numbness of A597-3 and feeling the overwhelming guilt and hopelessness and despair and anguish that came with the part of him that was still Eggsy.

Despite that flickering, that occasional numbness, every second of that wait hurt him.

 

 

 

**Present day, August 12 2016**

 

Harry opened the email around midnight the next day, and almost immediately Weber and Loussac had headed out to their respective locations. A little more than six hours later, Harry and Roxy showed up on their doorsteps. A597-3, standing out back where Weber would tell Harry he had kept a boy named Eggsy, heard the sound of fighting coming from the old abandoned apartment. He heard gunshots, the sound of shouting.

And then, silence.

One of them was dead, or at least close to it. There was no other explanation for it.

He hoped it was Weber. He refused to think about the possibility of the alternative.

He raised his gun and held it out in front of him. No matter what the outcome was, it would end here, now. There was no more time for him.

It was a few moments before the back door burst open and Harry – _Harry_ – stepped out into the clearing. A597-3 saw Harry's breath leave him in a huff as he saw him, saw the almost imperceptible widening of his eyes and the laugh that almost graced his lips. He knew what gasped word had left Harry's mouth, even though he couldn't hear it.

“ _Eggsy_.”

 _Harry._ Mixed relief and horror. If Harry was here, if he had made it this far, it meant that surely Weber was dead. It meant that the success of the mission was in danger, that Ross would have guns pointed on his mother and sister before very long, if he didn’t already. That Ross would kill them if things didn’t go exactly according to plan.

He must do what A130-2 and A005-0 could not.

He saw confusion flicker across Harry’s face; Eggsy was supposed to have been tortured. Harry was supposed to be here to rescue him, and yet, here he stood, unbound, skin unbroken beneath his scars. And then he saw realization, and a kind of pain that he never wanted to see again.

He heard his name again, slipping out between numbed lips. The sound of it fell heavy on the cracked pavement beneath their feet, and with it fell pieces of himself.

For a moment, Harry looked almost broken as the weight of everything hit him. “It was you.”

Eggsy – because he was indeed almost Eggsy Unwin again, how could he ever have hoped to be anything else in front of Harry, how could he have possibly pretended to be A597-3 and feel nothing – could have laughed. _Yeah, it was me. And now you hate me, don’t you?_

 _He’d_ known it was Harry, for his part. He hadn’t been taken by surprise, not this time. He’d known Kingsman had sent him to take him down, he’d seen him in the area when he’d watched from the shadows. He shouldn't have been surprised now, and he wasn’t, but with Harry right in front of him, Harry _seeing_ him now just as he saw Harry, he couldn't have prepared himself for the rush of emotion that flooded him despite his best attempts to hold it back, and the rest of A597-3 fell away as lightly and easily as snow fell from the sky, raining like ashes from the clouds and raindrops from the sun.

Eggsy wanted so desperately to call out to him, to talk to him, to touch him. For things to be the way they were. But he couldn't.

It wouldn’t be right, after what he had done.

He deserved to die, for what he had done.

He stood there instead, silent, unmoving, gun raised and pointed at Harry even as Harry had his gun raised and pointed at him. One movement from either of them could cause the other to fire.

_Stalemate._

His hands were surprisingly steady, considering he was pointing a gun at the man he loved. Considering one of them was about to be condemned to death, when in another universe, another timeline, they might have had the rest of their lives together. In a way, for one of them at least, that would also be true here. One of them would die here, and spend their last moments on earth with the man he’d once – still? – loved more than anything else in the world.

Eggsy selfishly hoped it would be him. What a last blessing it would be, for Harry to be the last thing his darkening eyes saw before everything faded to nothingness forever. Perhaps it would bring him a little bit of peace, to see the beautiful dark brown of Harry’s gaze again just before his vision went black and his thoughts ceased to exist, even if the dark brown was cold and flat and angry. (God knows anger was better than indifference. Anger meant Ross was wrong, that someone else still cared. That _Harry_ still cared, even if it was to hate him.) Because he couldn’t ask for more. He couldn’t ask for Harry to hold him tight, for Harry to soothe him as his life slipped away, for Harry to do anything other than stand there and watch him fall. Harry was the best agent to ever grace any of the Kingsman halls, and surely he wouldn't let a little thing like emotion get in his way. And Eggsy was the enemy now, anyway, and Harry couldn’t love him anymore, so for his life to end with Harry in any way at all would be enough.

A wry smile curved the corners of Eggsy's lips. Good. Maybe Harry could do what he couldn't. Maybe Harry could kill him and end it all while Eggsy stood there frozen with his love for him.

 _So kill me, Harry. Pull the fuckin’ trigger an’ put your fuckin’ bullet in my brain_ , he thought, as forcefully as he could, as if the strength of his will would somehow spur Harry into action.

But it didn't. Whether it was some unheard command or Harry’s own inability to tighten his finger, Eggsy’s life was, for the moment, spared. They stood there for what seemed like hours, and yet it was as if time had stopped. It was as if they were alone in the universe, just the two of them destined to face each other at the end and determine each other's destruction, and nothing else mattered. It was as if every event in time had brought them here, together as in another time Eggsy would have thought they were supposed to be, but at opposite ends of a gun this time, in a cruel, ironic twist of fate.

And then Harry lowered his weapon.

Confusion furrowed Eggsy's brow, but he didn't move. He couldn’t. _Kill me_ , Eggsy thought, almost desperately, and if he’d been able to talk he would have screamed it. _Shoot him_ , the voice in the back of his mind that was A597-3 whispered instead, and he was immeasurably glad for the lack of red dot in the corner of his vision that meant Ross hadn’t turned on visual transmission in the scanner in his eye.

Ross didn’t need to see how helpless he was, how utterly frozen he was in the face of Harry’s cold gaze, like a deer in headlights.

“I don't think it's fair that we shoot each other to death, is it?” Harry asked. His voice carried easily across the small clearing, and Eggsy felt his heart jolt when he heard it. Clear and crisp, as always. Still the same after two years, still steady and sure despite the circumstances they were in. “We both need each other alive. You're no use to me if you can't speak, and you can't use me as leverage if I'm not alive.”

Still, Eggsy didn’t move. What he said was true, of course; Harry was no use to Ross dead, and if Kingsman really wanted to find Ross, they needed Eggsy alive.

But neither of them would give up their secrets. One of them was as good as dead already. He knew Harry; the man would rather die than betray Kingsman. And he knew himself; if it came down to betraying Ross or protecting his family by keeping his mouth shut, there was no question as to what he would choose. Even if it meant that Kingsman would have no use for him. Even if it meant his death.

But if this mission failed and he died, his family would die too.

Failure was not an option. And yet he couldn’t move, couldn’t bring himself to take Harry down.

“I’m not going to shoot you,” Harry said.

 _And I can’t shoot you_ , Eggsy thought. _I can’t do this to you._

Funny, that. He’d been able to do everything that had brought Harry here, but now that it had come time to do the most important thing, to disable him and bring him back to Ross, he couldn’t move.

Harry took a step forward.

Kingsman might as well have already won, because Eggsy was frozen. _Shoot him now_ , A597-3 urged insistently, trying to prod him into action, reminding him that if he didn’t follow his orders, if he didn’t incapacitate Harry as Ross wanted him to, his family was as good as dead. A597-3 was getting stronger now, fighting for control as it felt Eggsy’s control slipping away. A597-3 knew Eggsy desperately wanted to retreat into the safety of emptiness, of nothingness, and it latched onto it like a leech.

 _He might have a bulletproof suit on, but he’s not invulnerable_ , it told him. Just a single action, a slight tightening of Eggsy’s fingers around the trigger, and Harry would be dead. Because Eggsy had his cheek centered in the target, and one shot would cause a bullet to tear through the man’s brainstem, cause him to crumple lifelessly to the ground, cause his world to spiral into oblivion.

But Ross didn’t want that. Ross needed someone from Kingsman alive, someone who he could use to tear the whole thing down, and who better than their best agent?

And still –

Eggsy could do that too. The analysis in light blue that flitted across his vision told him that he would shoot to kill if he pulled the trigger now, but he could change the angle of his gun slightly, just enough that the bullet would rip its way through something other than Harry’s spinal cord, render him crippled but still alive, and bring him back to Ross. Back to be tortured, back to be slowly dissected until he gave Ross the information he needed. Back to be killed, in the end, because Ross wouldn’t get anything out of him. At this distance, Harry wouldn’t be able to see the shift. He wouldn’t be able to react until it was too late for him to do anything.

And Eggsy would complete another mission, and he’d keep his family safe one more time.

But the price – if the price was Harry’s life, Harry’s sanity –

“Are you going to shoot me?” Harry asked, and his voice was still clear, still calm, almost blissfully oblivious to the torment of Eggsy’s thoughts. “Are you going to shoot me like you shot Merlin?”

Eggsy felt a jolt run through him at the mention of Merlin’s name, and guilt rose in the back of his throat, bitter and hot. Merlin, the man who had taught him, who had been a best friend and mentor to him when Harry had lain unconscious in the Kingsman hospitals with a concussion and broken ribs and cuts and bruises all over his body. Merlin, whose kindness and guidance and mentorship Eggsy had repaid with a bullet to his face and the kiss of death.

Merlin, who he’d killed.

“I do think you’re capable of it,” Harry continued, and pain clenched like a vice around Eggsy’s chest. A tremor ran through his hands. Is this really what Harry thought of him? Did Harry really think he was that heartless, that he could shoot the man who had saved his life and who he loved wholly, unconditionally, devotedly?

“I think you’re able to shoot me,” Harry said. “To kill me. If you really put your mind to it. I don’t suppose I mean any more to you now than Merlin did when you shot him.”

 _You’re wrong. I love you,_ Eggsy wanted to say, even though he knew that Harry had every reason to think the way he did, since in over two years Eggsy had done nothing to show that he even remembered him, much less still cared about him. In over two years every single thing he’d done had been against the Kingsman code Harry had so carefully taught him, and Harry knew that now.

“I don’t suppose I mean any more to you now than all of those other people did when you shot them,” Harry said, and his words were like knives in Eggsy’s chest, piercing his heart, driving the breath from his lungs. “So this should be easy for me, but it’s not.”

And then, too late, he saw Harry’s hand moving, fingers curled into a fist and wrist flicking upwards; before he had time to react, he felt the sharp sting of a dart in his neck. Electricity coursed through him, his fingers tightened involuntarily on the trigger of his gun, and the world went black.

 

 

 

Eggsy woke a few moments later, his entire body numb and tingly, the blue – alarmingly – gone from his vision. He was on his back, pressed against the cold ground, and Harry was crouched above him.

“What the fuck –” he began, voice slurred, and he saw the clench in Harry’s jaw at the sound of his voice. He hadn’t heard it in two years either, Eggsy realized, and it must have been as jarring for him to hear Eggsy’s voice as it had been for Eggsy to hear Harry’s. Even if it was impossible for Harry to still love him, for Harry to still care about him, knowing what Eggsy had done.

“We’ve updated our tech,” Harry said, and his voice was cold. Eggsy could just barely see the cracks in his composure that betrayed how hard it was for him to do this. “That signet ring? That watch? Merlin managed to combine them, before he was shot. Knocks you out for a few seconds.” There was anger in his voice; that much was clear, but there was something else too that Eggsy’s recently-electrocuted brain couldn’t make out.

 _A few seconds. Long enough for the scanner to fry out, and maybe reset the tracker too – it’ll alert Ross. Long enough for you to get over here,_ he thought, and his thoughts were slow. It was like waking up suddenly from a deep sleep, like thinking through molasses; the muddled confusion still clouded his mind. _Long enough for – fuck!_ His hands were empty. His gun – where was his gun –

“Your gun is over there,” Harry said, nodding to his left. His fingers were warm around Eggsy’s throat, their pressure firm but not painful. Hope, Eggsy registered belatedly. Hope that Eggsy, the old Eggsy, the Eggsy that Harry had recruited, was still in there somewhere. And Eggsy realized that he had overestimated Harry. Emotion had overridden his Kingsman training, overridden his logic, overridden everything he lived for.

“Who do you work for?” Harry demanded.

He could hear it in Harry’s voice, too. Weakness. The desperation for the old Eggsy to be there. He was aware of the weight of Harry’s knee on his stomach, holding him down, of the signet ring that he knew was on Harry’s right hand pressed against his temple. None of it deadly. Harry didn’t want to kill him, even now.

A597-3 fought for control. Blocking out his emotions. Stopping him from thinking. Making him back into a weapon, into the machine Ross programmed him to be, so Eggsy wouldn’t have to face the psychological repercussions of his actions. _He’s emotional_ , A597-3 thought _. Shocked. Vulnerable. Hit him now, while you can count on taking him down._

“Damn it, who do you work for?” Harry repeated. He was shouting now. Eggsy could hear the crack in his voice. He would break so easily.

_Ross._

No. Don’t say anything.

_Daisy._

Keep her safe. Keep Mum safe. _Don’t say anything._

_Kill me, Harry._

“Eggsy,” Harry began, and panic shot through Eggsy’s body. Ross would hear, Ross would know that Harry was the one he knew, would know that Eggsy was never really his, would know that Kingsman was his weakness and that Eggsy would be of no use to him to take it down, Ross would know that Eggsy was Harry’s weakness just as Harry was Eggsy’s and he would use that against all of them –

But Eggsy heard his name on Harry’s lips and it was like it had frozen him.

“Eggsy,” Harry said again, and Eggsy could feel the shaking in his fingers around his throat, against his temple. “Tell me you’re in there, Eggsy.”

 _Appealing to emotions. Reaching for my humanity. Stop saying my name!_ Eggsy’s eyes were burning. _Don’t cry. Don’t show emotion. Ross will know._ But it was too late, and he knew it. He was crying already; he had been crying ever since he knew that Harry had seen him and was trying to kill him and ever since he knew that he would have to kill Harry in turn, since both of them would die before they gave up their secrets. Ever since he knew that things were going to go to shit and it would all be his fault.

 _Kill him_ , A597-3 whispered in his ear, soft, snakelike, worming its way to the surface. _He’s off-guard. You have a knife at your thigh, near his femoral. Kill him, complete the mission, save your family one more time. Prove Ross wrong, prove that you can do even this for him._

“I can’t,” Eggsy whispered, and his vision was blurring, his throat constricting on a sob. His fingers closed around Harry’s forearms, grasping at them desperately, begging him, though he didn’t know what he was begging for. Saving, he supposed. Mercy. Or maybe it was to ensure that his hands were visible, that they were holding onto something other than the hilt of a knife that would slip so easily into Harry’s thigh or between his ribs.

“Kill me, Harry,” he choked out, before A597-3 could take control again and make him kill the man he loved most in this God-forsaken world. He saw Harry flinch back at the words like he’d been struck, felt his grip loosen around his throat, and it would have been so easy for Eggsy to wriggle out and gain the upper hand, if he had wanted to. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

“Kill me,” he said again, and it was a sob now, a harsh, desperate, ugly sound, and he saw that it was hurting Harry to hear it, and he knew that it wasn’t fair for him to ask this of Harry, but he couldn’t stop. He said it over and over again, like a chant, tears blurring his vision and he knew he deserved to die, and he _wanted_ to die, and all the pain of what he’d done was drowning him but even then he knew it couldn’t compare to the amount of pain he’d caused so many other people, the amount of pain he must be causing Harry –

_I don’t want to hurt anymore._

“I’m taking him back to HQ,” Harry said harshly, and Eggsy realized that he was talking to the person behind his glasses, overseeing the mission.

_Merlin._

Bile rose in his throat. Because no, it wouldn’t be Merlin, would it? Eggsy had shot him. For all he knew, Merlin was dead, and it was his fault. Harry had reminded him of that enough.

The pressure against his temple faded, and Harry released his grip on Eggsy’s throat.

_Kill me._

But Harry wouldn’t. Eggsy knew he wouldn’t.

“No,” Harry snarled at not-Merlin as he stood and pulled Eggsy to his feet. “I will not, I refuse to –”

And then he broke off, because Eggsy had shoved him out of the way, because Eggsy had seen something out of the corner of his eye that he’d seen all too many times before and he knew without question what it meant.

 _Crack._ Three times, in quick succession, the sound of the gunshots echoing around the street, bouncing off the walls of the abandoned buildings. Eggsy felt his body jerk twice, felt Harry pushed sharply against him.

First, panic. _No no no, please don’t let him have been hit –_

And then pain.

“Fuck –”

Eggsy’s breath left him in a huff and he sank to his knees. He was only distantly aware of a fourth crack from Harry’s handgun, deadly precision immediately killing what he knew was the asset sent to follow him and take him out should he be unable to complete the mission, and to finish his task for him should he fail.

_Should he fail._

He heard himself laugh; short, pained. Oh, he had definitely failed.

_Mum._

_Daisy._

_Pain._

He fell.

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy was just shot. Harry tries to keep himself composed, and he tries to keep Eggsy alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for blood/violence, not-quite-PTSD yet but definitely initial reactions to trauma.

HARRY

 

“Eggsy!” Harry caught the boy in his arms as he staggered and sank to his knees. It had all happened in the span of two seconds – Roxy’s warning that there were more agents than they’d thought, then Eggsy shoving him out of the way and two shots hitting Eggsy’s chest and abdomen, a third hitting the small of Harry’s back but stopped by the Kingsman suit. A fourth, from Harry’s gun, tearing through the skull of the would-be assassin. He knew his bullet would hit its target as soon as he’d pulled the trigger, but he couldn’t help the overwhelming guilt and horror that enveloped him as soon as he’d heard the boy’s soft cry of pain.

It tore at him, the not-quite-gasp that escaped Eggsy’s lips, the look of shock in his eyes and stunned, breathless laugh of disbelief.

Harry couldn’t believe it either. There was no way the boy had just been shot, no way that there was blood suddenly spreading through the front of his shirt, it had to be a prank, just a cruel joke –

His thoughts, wild, deafening, immediate repeated screaming in his head _no no no no no –_

If only he’d been a little faster, a little more alert, the bullets might not have hit them at all –

And then it struck him that Eggsy had pushed him out of the way. Eggsy was the enemy, Eggsy was the one who had set everything up, Eggsy was the one to had _lied_ to him. But Eggsy also had to have known the bullets were coming, he had to have known Harry was wearing a bulletproof suit, and yet, despite that –

Eggsy had just taken two bullets for him.

_Kill me, kill me, kill me –_

He heard Merlin curse, and then type furiously. Reviewing the feed from his glasses; looking for more snipers hidden in the buildings. “Medical,” Merlin snapped as he typed, jolting him out of his impending panic. “C’mon, Harry. You know what to do.”

Medical – right. Clear the airway, make sure he’s breathing, make sure blood is still circulating. Check for pupil response and rate of heartbeat and breathing. Stop the bleeding, keep him calm.

It had been seven seconds since Eggsy had been shot.

Seven seconds that Harry should have been there for him instead of panicking, seven seconds that he should have been stopping the bleeding, comforting him, keeping him safe.

“Fuck,” Eggsy whispered. His eyes were wide, terrified, glistening with tears, his lips parted with pain and shock. “Fuck, I –” He swallowed hard, his chest heaving with breaths, and when he put his hands to his body and drew them away covered in blood his breaths quickened in panic, in fear. “I’m dying – oh, God, I’m dying – Harry, help me –”

He was just a boy, then, realizing his own mortality, and it terrified him.

“I’m here,” Harry said softly, panic and fear lending a tremor to his voice as he eased the boy down gently and tried not to jostle him. “I’ve got you. You’re alright, Eggsy, I promise. You won’t die.” He could hear Roxy’s bit-off curse in the background, the sound of gunshots and fighting, but he couldn’t worry about that now. Roxy was skilled; she would be fine. She had to be.

Eggsy had to be too, Harry thought almost desperately. He had to be okay, he had to make it through this.

“ _Harry_ ,” Merlin said firmly. “Come on, Harry. He needs you right now.”

 _Focus_. He checked quickly for exit wounds; there didn’t appear to be any, so he laid the boy down gently on the ground. The boy's body trembled, but Harry couldn't tell if it was because he had just been shot or if it was because his own arms were shaking. He’d been so prepared to kill the man who had shot Merlin despite his orders to bring Garlon in alive, so prepared to _destroy_ him, but if Garlon was Eggsy –

It felt like his whole world had shattered.

It couldn’t be, he thought, and it was like a raging haze in the back of his mind, blocking out any other thought. It couldn’t be Eggsy – his wonderful, sweet, innocent Eggsy – who was behind it all.

But he knew it was. There was no other explanation. He’d seen it in the steadiness of the boy’s hands as he pointed a gun at the man he’d once claimed to love, because that steadiness didn’t just come without practice. He knew. Everyone at Kingsman knew. And despite his time in the Marines and his excellent scores during training, Eggsy’s hands had never been that steady when he pointed a gun at something he loved.

Eggsy had never really been his, had he?

( _And yet, Eggsy had just taken two bullets for him_.)

“Just breathe, Eggsy, in and out,” Harry soothed as he lay the boy down, and when Eggsy met his gaze unwaveringly it was as if, for just a moment, things were as they had been before all of this. It was as if he was still Eggsy’s mentor and Eggsy was still his recruit, as if they were back at Kingsman during recruit training and he’d stayed up with Eggsy all night without question when he’d fallen ill with pneumonia and had to spend two days in Medical.

As if they were still in love.

Eggsy took a heaving breath and then bit off with a cry of pain, reaching desperately for Harry, hands scrabbling for something – someone – to hold onto. He coughed, and there was blood.

A pang of agony shot through Harry's chest like something physical tearing through his flesh. “Gently, gently. I’m here, love, I’m here. You’re alright.” He shrugged off his jacket and tore off his shirt, pressing it hard to the wounds in the boy’s body and adding his bulletproof jacket on top of it. He suddenly looked so fragile. “Just breathe. Steady now, love.” The endearments slipped out almost without him noticing, coming as easily to his lips as if he hadn’t just found out that Eggsy – _Eggsy_ – was Garlon. That Eggsy had faked his way through that video just to get Harry to come to him.

The weight of the reality he was facing struck him again. Eggsy was the one who had shot Merlin, he realized. Eggsy, the boy he’d loved for all this time, was the one responsible for the murders of dozens of innocent people, the one who had shot Atkins.

The screams from the church in Kentucky rang through Harry’s ears.

No. Harry shook his head sharply, guilt bubbling up in him despite his best efforts. He wasn’t like that. He hadn’t had a choice, Valentine had been messing with his brain, fucking up his emotions, taking away any control and agency he had over himself –

 _He_ hadn’t been part of a network that killed for money.

Pain shot through him at the thought. Eggsy, it was all Eggsy –

“A cab will be here in twenty seconds,” Merlin said tersely through his glasses. “I’ve scanned the perimeter for snipers; it seems like you got the only one, but I won't say for sure.”

The meaning behind his words was clear. _You're vulnerable without the suit._

He'd take the chance. No matter what Garlon had done, Harry had to believe that his Eggsy was still there. Because Eggsy wouldn’t have done something like that. He wouldn’t murder for money, he wouldn’t do anything to betray Kingsman, unless –

Unless he was being forced to.

Harry’s breath left him in a soft huff.

Why else would he have been shot, as soon as there was a chance of him being taken prisoner? Why else would he have begged Harry so desperately to kill him, his entire expression filled with pain and guilt and anguish?

Eggsy coughed again, blood speckling his lips, and a fresh wave of sticky heat met Harry’s hands as the jarring movement caused more blood to flow. He swallowed and pressed down harder against the bleeding; Eggsy cried out, his face twisted in pain. The bleeding continued. He felt the boy’s hand on his wrist, his fingers like a vice, knuckles standing out white against the back of his hand.

He tapped.

Harry’s heart missed a beat. He wasn’t Kingsman’s best spy for nothing; he knew code when he saw it.

_Morse._

A number, and then two words.

“An address,” Harry breathed.

A single nod, and more taps. Eggsy’s lips were growing pale, his face already a shocking white. His breathing was fast, shallow, harsh, and it was getting harder and harder to distinguish between deliberate taps of his fingers against Harry’s wrist and the involuntary tightening of his grip against the pain.

“Get the cab here faster,” Harry said through his glasses. He was grateful when Merlin did not comment on how his voice shook. He forced himself to focus on Eggsy, on reading the message he was trying to send, and ensuring that Merlin could see the movement of Eggsy’s fingers through his glasses to translate taps into words.

A few more words, broken sentences.

_126 Conifer Way, Wembley. My family hostage. Snipers. Help them._

“Shit,” Harry breathed.

“On it,” Merlin said immediately. “But it might be a trap – I can’t send anyone in unless we know more –”

“If they die –”

 _Hurry_ , Eggsy tapped almost desperately, and his fingers slipped off of Harry’s wrist, his eyes squeezed shut, his body curled in on itself in pain.

“You worry about him, let me worry about this,” Merlin snapped, and Harry didn’t argue.

 

 

 

The car could not have showed up sooner.

“We're going to get you somewhere safe now, alright?” Harry asked, easing his arm under Eggsy's shoulders to lift him off the ground as he saw the black cab pull around the corner, ignoring the pain in his own ribs. He heard the boy's sharp breath, felt the weakness in his body, and pressed his other hand down against him. “We need to keep pressure on this.”

 _126 Conifer Way_ , Eggsy began to tap on Harry’s wrist.

“Shh, it’s alright. We’ll take care of it, you just put pressure on this now, can you do that?”

Eggsy did not respond, but he lifted his hands and pressed them against himself. It wasn't enough pressure, not nearly enough, but it would have to do for now until Harry could get him into the cab.

“That's it, Eggsy,” Harry said as encouragingly as he could with his own hands trembling, his own voice shaking. He lifted the boy into his arms just as the cab skidded to a stop a few feet away and the door opened with a flick of a switch on the console. Eggsy coughed at the movement, blood coming out in a fine spray, and began to convulse.

“Fuck,” Eggsy gasped out. There was blood on his lips. “Fuck, I –”

Merlin cursed again. “Hurry – you too, Lancelot. I’m seeing something about two miles away that might mean backup. You should have enough time to be out of here by then, but we don’t want to take any chances.”

“Got it. Now shh, love,” Harry whispered to Eggsy, settling him down across the backseat of the cab and trying his best to ignore the panic rising in him. The door shut and the cab pulled away from the curb with a harsh squeal of the tires; Harry knelt on the floor of the cab in front of the boy, cradling his hand against his cheek, and tried not to think.

The mission. The mission was all that mattered. _Just finish the fucking mission._ Through the glasses, he heard gunshots.

“Hurts,” Eggsy choked out. “I can’t – can’t breathe.” His eyes were wide and wandering and didn’t seem to be able to focus; poor pupil response, Harry realized belatedly. He coughed again, and cried out in pain, and more blood came up. No doubt one of the bullets had hit a lung.

Harry tightened his grip on the boy’s hand, pressed down a little harder against the bleeding that he didn’t seem to be able to stop. “Yes, you can,” he said, turning to press a kiss to the boy’s palm even as he felt him slipping away, because he still loved him.

He couldn’t believe he still fucking loved him.

But if Eggsy was telling the truth, if his family really were being held hostage at 126 Conifer Way –

“Come on, Eggsy, in and out, easy. You’re alright. Here.” He tilted the boy’s head to the side, angled his body so he wasn’t flat on his back to help with his breathing. Sweat had begun to bead on the boy’s forehead and he wiped it away gently, flinching at how cold he felt.

“Guess I’m…guess I’m gonna die first,” Eggsy whispered, and he huffed a short, pained laugh. His eyes were glistening. “’M sorry.”

“No!” Harry ran his fingers through the boy’s sweat-soaked hair, feeling him shiver under his touch. “No, you’ll be absolutely fine, you’re not going to die, I promise –”

“Shh.” He felt Eggsy’s thumb on his cheek, stroking gently, saw the tightening of his face against the pain, the paling of his lips as his blood kept running freely from his body. “Nothin’ you can do,” he said quietly, and his words were starting to slur now, his eyes starting to drift shut. “It’s alright, love, ‘s not…not your fault.” There was a faint smile on his face now, and he looked almost peaceful under the pain.

“Keep the pressure. We’ll get there,” Merlin said, and Harry could hear the tension in his voice. They both knew the symptoms of blood loss all too well, and they both knew when it was getting close to being too late. When the incoherence and confusion started, it would only be a matter of minutes.

“Eggsy,” Harry said, pressing his lips to the boy’s palm. “Eggsy, you’ll be alright. You’re not going to die.”

Eggsy’s eyes began to close.

“Eggsy? Eggsy, stay with me,” Harry said, and he couldn’t keep the desperation out of his voice. Eggsy needed to stay awake, needed to keep breathing –

“Hurts,” Eggsy said again. Harry wasn’t sure if he knew what was happening.

“I know, love, I know. I’m sorry.” The boy’s fingers were cold against his cheek, sapping warmth away from him, but Harry couldn’t make himself let go. “Just a little bit longer and we’ll be able to take care of it. Just stay with me now, alright? You’re going to be fine.”

_Training. Think about your training._

He slid his fingers down to the boy’s wrist, feeling for a pulse, and counted.

Over one-twenty beats per minute. Weak. Not good.

“You’re alright, Eggsy, I promise,” he said anyway, because he needed it to be true.

“Where – what’s happening?” Eggsy asked, and his voice was slurred, blood bubbling in his throat. “I’m scared, please, I –”

Harry swallowed hard. “You’re alright, just relax now. You’ll be fine.” The boy’s eyes met his, wavering and hazy, his gaze darting and unfocused. “You’ll be fine.”

“Harry, Gareth, we’ve got a situation.” Merlin sounded worried as he addressed both agent and driver. “That funny thing two miles away – it’s definitely backup, but they should’ve been headed to the original location.”

Harry did his best to pull himself back together enough to manage a response. “And they’re not?”

“No. They’re headed towards you, in a completely different direction. It’s as if they know where you’re going, and if that’s the case, on the course they’re headed you’re going to have contact in approximately thirty seconds. Are you sure you don’t have a tracker on you?”

“A tracker – Merlin, if you’re implying –”

“Harry, _listen to me_. I know you want to trust him, I know you want to believe he’s innocent, but we can’t take that chance right now. _Check yourself_. Check _him_ , for fuck’s sake – but find it.”

Eggsy reached out and gripped Harry’s arm. His eyes were suddenly clear, but Harry could see how hard he was fighting to keep himself conscious, keep himself coherent. He tapped, and Harry kept his glasses pointed at the boy’s hand to give Merlin the feed.

_My spine._

Harry drew a sharp breath.

“Shit,” Merlin spat. “Alright, I’m on it, but until then they know where you are. We’ll try to lose them at the Trout entrance. Contact in –”

Gareth cried out a sharp warning and the cab swerved hard to the left; gunshots roared out from their right. The bullets hit the cab, ricocheting off the windows, doing little damage to the glass but shaking the shell of the car. Harry crouched down over Eggsy without thinking, wrapping the boy in his arms and shielding him with his body.

“– now,” Merlin finished, somewhat unnecessarily.

“Permission to engage,” Harry snarled, crouching down as another round of bullets sprayed the cab.

“Denied. Too many civilians. Just keep them off your tail.”

“Shit.” Harry turned back to Eggsy, trying to hold him steady as the cab jerked wildly on a hard turn. His eyes were closed now, the hand that had gripped Harry’s wrist so tightly now limp at his side. Harry’s heart missed a beat; he could still feel a pulse in the boy’s wrist, but it was fluttering and light, and made no promises to stay.

His gut twisted. If he lost Eggsy now –

Merlin cursed. “Alright, I’ve found the signal, but it’s encrypted and I can’t spoof it.”

“Any way to jam it?” Harry gripped Eggsy’s hand tightly and focused on the pulse beating weakly beneath his fingertips. He slipped his other hand back behind the boy’s neck, tilting his head back slightly to help keep his airway clear. He had to keep breathing, he had to stay alive –

“I don’t know…wait – yes! Medical bag under the backseat. Take out the space blanket; it’s lined with aluminum and if you layer it over him it might be enough to block the GPS signal. I can’t make any guarantees, but there’s a chance it’ll work.”

Harry gave Eggsy’s hand a squeeze and reached under the seat; he pulled the bag out, unzipped it and pulled out the folded blanket.

“Now cover him with it. Fold it if you need to, but get as many layers of it over his spine as you can. Aluminum can block GPS transmission, but only if there’s enough of it. Hopefully if you fold it, it will be enough to at least muddle the signal, and by the time we’re underwater and back at HQ they’ll have lost it completely. There’s no way any satellite signal to a GPS tracker can get through several meters of water.”

The blanket was big enough that if Harry covered just the bare minimum of the boy’s body, he was able to get six layers of blanket over him. He hoped it would be enough. The cab flew over a bump and he winced; he saw Eggsy’s face tighten in pain at the movement and shifted so he was supporting the boy’s body better. He couldn’t tell if the blood was still flowing or not, but his hands were still sticky and hot.

“Try to keep Eggsy as stable as you can,” Merlin said. “Most of the bleeding will be internal and keeping the pressure on isn’t going to help if he keeps moving around.” He paused, and the car swerved sharply. A moment later, Harry heard the screeching of brakes and a metallic crash as one of the pursuing cars slammed into the other.

Harry turned back to Eggsy. His chest clenched at how fragile the boy looked, so easily breakable, as if his life could slip away from between his lips at any moment. “Stay with me,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against the boy’s, flinching at how cold it was. “Stay with me, Eggsy. Don’t leave me again.”

_Please don’t ever leave me again._

“ _It’s alright, love_.”

Did he – did Eggsy still –

“You’ve got two more coming towards you from the next intersection,” Merlin said, and Harry knew he was giving the same instructions to Gareth. His voice was tense, and the car shuddered under more gunfire. “They’ll be coming at you from the right.”

Gareth stepped on the gas. Eggsy’s pulse grew weaker.

“We need to get him to a medical center,” Harry said. His voice shook ever so slightly.

“How long?” Merlin asked; he was too focused on the chase to look at the feed from Harry’s glasses.

“Minutes.” Harry swallowed hard. “Seconds. I don’t know. He’s in shock – stage three.” _He’s bleeding out._

“Understood. Still green on Trout. No doubt Garlon’s guys will be scanning the perimeter, but hopefully they don’t have anything that would be able to scan for us that deep below the surface of the water.”

They shot through the intersection, and Harry turned his attention back to the boy.

“Eggsy,” Harry said firmly. “Eggsy, stay with me.” The boy’s eyes were closed, his skin pale and cold, his breaths coming fast and harsh and short. Shallow, rattling and wet with the blood in his lungs. The car swerved and Harry braced himself against the door, tightening his grip around the boy stretched out in the seat beside him. The last Harry had seen before folding the blanket over him, his entire front had been stained red with his blood even through Harry’s shirt.

Harry felt his gut twist. _The blood, there was so much blood –_

“You’ll be alright, Eggsy,” he said quietly, as the boy’s face twisted in pain even in unconsciousness. “I promise, darling, you’ll be alright. Just hold on for a bit longer.” He took a cold hand and pressed his lips to it, trying to stop his own hands from shaking. _You can’t give up._

“Intersection of South Street, make a hard left. There’s a train headed your way, but you need to time it properly if you want to avoid getting stuck on this side of it or crushed.”

 _Shaking off the other cars_ , Harry realized belatedly. There was no way the cars in pursuit would be able to make it through the train. The boy’s hands were cold in his, sapping warmth from his body, and the boy’s limp fingers trembled in Harry’s shaking hands. It was as if he’d kept his composure just long enough to know that the tracker signal was blocked, that they had a chance of making it to safety, and then he’d begun to fall apart.

“Hold it together, Harry,” Merlin said sharply. “We’ll make it.”

“Right.” Harry drew a deep, shuddering breath. “You hear that, Eggsy? We’ll make it. You’ll be fine.” Distantly he was aware of the driver speeding up, pushing the cab’s engines to the max. He tightened his hand around Eggsy’s and pressed down harder against the wounds, trying to stop the bleeding. It must have nicked a major artery inside him with the way the blood was flowing, and Harry felt something squeeze deep in his chest; he’d heard stories of people bleeding out on the table, had seen it himself in the field. But he’d never seen it happen to someone he loved as dearly and fiercely as the boy dying in front of him.

_If Eggsy died –_

Harry bit down a cry of anguish at the thought. Eggsy wouldn’t die. He couldn’t. Harry wouldn’t let him.

“You’ll be okay,” Harry heard himself say again, and he said it over and over like a chant, more for his sake than for the boy’s, since the boy was unconscious and probably couldn’t hear him anyway. He said it like a mantra, a prayer, as if it would be enough to hold Eggsy together and save his life.

“Shrapnel,” Merlin said suddenly, with a sharp intake of breath. It broke Harry out of his panicked haze, pulled him back into consciousness like a drowning man out of water.

“You’ll be – what?”

“The bullets,” Merlin said, speaking quickly in what must have been a lull in the chase, a moment where he could trust the driver to lose the other cars on his own, without the aid of an overhead visual. “I’ve been running an analysis scan. Must be made to explode after impact, cause maximum damage. Keep the pressure on, keep him as stable as you can, and just breathe.”

Harry felt his vision begin to swim. “Shrapnel –” he gasped out, and he felt his gut clench painfully as if tiny metal shards were worming their way into his body instead of the boy’s. He’d seen the damage shrapnel could do, could feel the damage it had done to Eggsy’s body soaking through the cloth and staining his hands.

“Hit it,” Merlin barked, and the intensity of his voice jolted Harry back even though it was directed at the driver and not him.

“Shrapnel,” Harry whispered again, and felt his insides twist, felt bile rising in his throat. “God, no.” He squeezed Eggsy’s hand, feeling a shiver run through him at how ridiculously cold it was, at how fragile it felt. He felt like he could snap the boy’s body in half with his bare hands, and a thrill of fear shot up his spine.

The cab swerved and slowed. “Hitting water, sir,” Gareth said tersely, and even though they would be safe inside the cab Harry crouched down over Eggsy, holding him stable, sheltering his body, needing to protect him and keep him safe –

“We’ll lose them,” Merlin reassured him as the cab entered water and Harry saw the surface of the river rise rapidly up the windows, heard the splashing against the reinforced sides. Harry felt the gears grinding below him in the floor of the cab, putting out the motors that would guide them to the underwater entrance to one of Kingsman’s outpost medical centers. “Harry, he’ll be okay.”

Harry took a shuddering breath and tried not to think about the state of the boy’s insides.

Merlin was speaking to him again. “Listen to me, Harry; you need to breathe. Focus on the mission; retrieve Garlon alive, get to Medical. Think about your medical training. You’ve done all that you could, and it will be enough for him to make it.”

“You need to let them know –”

“I have.” Merlin’s voice was calm. “The hyperloop is ready so you can get there as quickly as you can, and they’re already waiting for you at HQ Medical. Nurses outside the hyperloop, surgeons prepping the room. He’ll be in the best of care, but it will help if you tell me what you know. I’ll lose contact with you until HQ when the cab dives deeper, so you need to hurry.”

Harry swallowed down his panic. _Anything that could help him._ “No exit wounds,” he rasped. “Internal bleeding, damage to left lung, most likely. Minimal pupil response last –” He broke off; bile rose in the back of his throat and he breathed in sharply through his nose. _Keep it together_. “Last time he opened his eyes.” He didn’t need to mention that the last time had been several minutes ago.

“Did you get a chance to see where exactly he was hit?” Merlin asked.

He hadn’t been facing that direction, Harry recalled. Merlin wouldn’t be able to rewind the feed from his glasses to check. “I…I couldn’t tell. First bullet was probably – anywhere between fifth to ninth rib on his left side. Second was – I don’t know, somewhere on his right side, upper-right quadrant of his abdomen.”

“Alright. Keep it together, Harry. Anything else?” The signal was already cutting out.

“Yes.” Harry took a few deep breaths. “Difficulty breathing, coughing up blood. I – I don’t know if he has a collapsed lung, I tried to seal it but I only had cloth –” He broke off. “Weak and rapid pulse.” Very rapid. Too rapid.

In about thirty seconds, the first sealed doors of the underwater entrance to the Pimlico hyperloop would open ahead of them to let them through. They just needed to make it in, lock the wheels into place, wait for the doors to close and the water to drain, and then the second sealed doors would open and he would be able to get Eggsy through the hyperloop to safety.

Not long now. But there was so much blood, and the boy’s heart –

“Merlin,” he choked out. “Merlin, if he dies –” He broke off with a sob. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Eggsy wasn’t supposed to die before him. Eggsy was young, strong, _beautiful_ , and Harry wasn’t supposed to have to watch his bright eyes dim, wasn’t supposed to have to hear is breaths fade, wasn’t supposed to have to feel his skin grow cold beneath his lips.

Eggsy just _wasn’t fucking supposed to die first,_ and now that it was happening, Harry didn’t know how to deal with it. It was as if it was written in the stars that they could not be.

But God, would he wage wars against those stars if it meant he could have Eggsy back.

“He won’t die,” Merlin said firmly. “He’ll make it.”

It was the last thing he heard from Merlin before the signal cut out.

Harry held Eggsy’s hand in his and fell apart.

 

 

 

It seemed too long before the cab came to a stop, before the water finished draining and the second sealed doors opened to the hyperloop pod that was already waiting for them. Gareth helped Harry lift the boy’s body from the backseat as gently as he could; he didn’t want to jostle the boy, didn’t want to risk the shrapnel cutting into anything else, or, God forbid, dislodge anything that might be stemming the blood flow inside him.

“He’ll be okay,” Gareth kept saying.

As soon as they were in the pod, the doors shut and sealed, and they were on their way.

“Too long,” Harry said, and he was shaking, and his vision was blurred, and his ribs _ached_. “It’s taking too long, we need to go faster –”

Minutes, Harry had said, several minutes ago.

Eggsy was cold, so cold, and his breaths and heartbeat barely there.

He was running out of time.

 

 

 

The pod came to a stop in the underground of Kingsman HQ. As soon as the doors hissed open, a group of surgeons rushed forward with a gurney, trailed by a Kingsman knight who must have rushed over from the shop. Harry wasn’t sure how they got Eggsy’s body onto the stretcher, or if he played a role in that at all, or if he’d just stood there shaking and sobbing and trying to will Eggsy’s body to life.

He couldn’t think. He couldn’t seem to make himself form coherent thoughts, to focus on anything that was going on besides the feel of Eggsy’s cold hand in his, the pulse that he could barely feel under his palm, and it took several moments for him to realize that one of the surgeons – codename Morien, Harry remembered belatedly – was trying to speak to him.

“Galahad, sir, I’m going to need you to step aside.”

Panic. “Step aside – no, no I need to be with him –”

“I need to be able to examine him, if you would please step aside –”

Once again, belatedly, Harry’s brain registered what she was saying. “I – right,” he said blankly, and forced himself to let go of Eggsy’s hands, to let the cold, limp fingers slip out of his grasp, even though he felt like it would kill him, because he was willing to die a thousand deaths if it meant Eggsy would live.

The boy’s hand twitched as Harry let it go. It was as if the loss of contact with Harry had pulled him back from death a little bit, and Harry did his best not to think about how much that hurt, about the entire two years Eggsy had spent without Harry, that Harry had spent without Eggsy, and of how much the boy needed him now in a way that he couldn’t possibly provide.

“I’m here, darling,” Harry soothed shakily, curling his fingers into Eggsy’s hip instead as Morien took Eggsy’s hands and pulled them gently aside so she could remove the blanket, Harry’s jacket, and his shirt, now all soaked with Eggsy’s blood. “You’re safe now, love. We’ll take care of you.”

Eggsy was already gone again.

“There’s – there’s a tracker,” Harry managed to say to Morien. “In his spine.”

“Got it. Surgery,” Morien snapped, and the nurses wheeled him away. She followed, speaking into her glasses, and her voice faded as she rushed after the other nurses. “Two gunshot wounds, one to the epigastric and one to the left side of the chest between the seventh and eight ribs. Punctured lung. Severe internal damage to the abdominal region and arterial bleeding, I’m going to need massive blood transfusions. No exit wounds.”

Harry felt lightheaded; the world began to spin slightly, and he stumbled.

“Harry!” The knight – Jay – rushed to support him.

“I’m fine,” he bit out. Eggsy was being pulled further and further away from him, slipping out of his grasp again, and he couldn’t let that happen. He had to stay with Eggsy, had to be there for him, had to make sure he was safe, and he couldn’t do that if they were taking Eggsy away from him.

“Harry,” Merlin said, and his voice was severe. It jolted him back into the present, brought his thoughts away from the boy he loved being taken away from him.

Eggsy needed surgery.

Harry couldn’t interfere with that.

He swallowed, allowed Jay to hold onto him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice rasped in his throat. “I apologize, I –”

“Harry, we need to get you checked out,” Jay said. “Here, just – lean on me, alright? We’ll go to Medical, we’ll get someone to take a look at you –”

“Eggsy,” Harry interrupted. “I need to know he’s okay –”

He could feel Jay stiffening beside him. Merlin had proposed Jay for the position of Gawain, Harry remembered distantly. Merlin had mentored him, when he had still been just a recruit. And then Eggsy had shot Merlin.

“He took those bullets for me,” Harry said, and he felt a sudden wave of nausea. Eggsy – even if he was the Invisible Knight that Kingsman had been trying to catch for the past few months, even if he had killed – Eggsy was willing to die for him, and now he was _actually_ dying –

No. Don’t think about that.

“We’re going to get you checked out,” Jay said gently. “Eggsy’s there too, alright? He’ll be nearby.”

Harry swallowed, stumbled, allowed Jay to steady him. “Yes,” he said, after a few moments. It came out breathless and shaky.

He didn’t know how he made it to Medical, other than that Jay must have supported him the entire way, must have kept him upright and walking. He didn’t know what happened at Medical, either, other than that they must have asked him questions and examined him, and that the whole time he was thinking about Eggsy and trying to fight down this overwhelming _fear_ that he was going to lose him.

Harry couldn’t lose him.

Harry couldn’t let him die.

 

 

 

Medical discharged Harry an hour later. There had been nothing physically wrong with him that they could do anything about – at least, anything more than prescribing painkillers, giving him ice for the swelling, and telling him not to do anything strenuous until his ribs healed – and Merlin had convinced the staff looking over him that the nearer he was allowed to be to Eggsy, the calmer he would be.

He wasn’t sterile. No – it was worse than that. He was downright dangerous, covered in dirt and blood and dust, and couldn’t be allowed into the surgical area. But he was allowed to wait outside it, and just like on the way down to Medical he wasn’t sure how he got there but he knew that it must have been Jay supporting him and his own need to be near Eggsy that did it.

He didn’t know where Jay went after that. Later, Merlin told him that Roxy wanted backup after her initial sweep of the area, and since no other agents were near Wembley, it fell on Jay to give up what would have been his easy day and step in. HQ was near enough 126 Conifer Way that if Jay took the hyperloop and the driver stepped on the gas a little, he would get there in time. But for now, Eggsy was all Harry could think of, and fear and panic were consuming him so thoroughly that he couldn’t stop shaking, and –

“Harry.”

Harry paced in front of the closed doors, wringing his hands, hair falling wildly in his face. Merlin had managed to convince Morien to let him keep audio tabs on the procedure room because he couldn’t stand not knowing what was happening, he couldn’t imagine going through the next few hours in utter oblivion, and he knew Merlin was keeping tabs too.

But he could hear everything, including the alarm of the monitor systems, the tension in the surgeons’ voices, and he didn’t know if hearing everything was better than hearing nothing.

The shock blanket and ice he’d been given lay discarded on the ground. He didn’t even know he was pacing, he just needed to move, to feel like he was doing something other than sitting and waiting uselessly, even if that something was just walking back and forth, even if that something was sharp pain in his side with every step, with every breath.

“Harry.” A little more insistently, this time.

“ _What_?” Harry demanded, more harshly than he’d intended but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not now, not when Eggsy was lying on the table a few meters away with bullets in his chest. Not when he’d heard the heartrate monitor flatline three times already. Not when he was so close to just breaking down, sinking to the floor on his knees and tearing at his hair, screams forcing their way up from his throat, and God, his ribs _hurt_ –

Merlin’s voice was firm in his ear, grounding him, steadying him. “He’ll be okay,” he was saying, and eventually Harry’s brain was able to register the words. “He’ll be fine. The best surgeons in the world are taking care of him right now.”

“His – his heart –” He couldn’t bring himself to continue. The shrill sound of the monitor echoed deafeningly in his ears, the sound of Eggsy’s life slowly dripping away, rich red seeping incessantly out of his body and leaking onto the ground –

“I know.” The Scottish brogue was somehow soothing, reassuring him that everything would be alright, that Eggsy would make it through this. “But he’s back, okay? He’s alive, his heart is beating, he’s getting oxygen. And the best surgeons – _our_ surgeons, Harry, remember that – are working on him. With _my_ tech. Stuff the rest of the world couldn’t even dream of. He’s not going anywhere.”

“You can’t promise that.” His voice trembled. He felt out of control. He’d never felt this before; the shaking of his hands and the wild staccato pounding of his heart was unfamiliar to him. In the past, he’d always had something to distract him, whether it had been completing the mission, filing paperwork afterwards, or fulfilling his duty of informing the family of the fallen.

_Lee Unwin. Eggsy’s father._

Not to mention that he had never loved anyone like this before, never loved anyone this fiercely and with all the fire of his existence. So this, this was new. The overwhelming fear that Eggsy, his darling Eggsy, would slip away from him, with nothing to do to distract him from it, nothing to keep his mind occupied until the initial shock had worn off and he was better equipped to process it. “Is this – is this what it’s like to love someone, Merlin?” he asked, and he heard the desperation in his voice, the panic that bubbled up inside him. “Is this what it feels like to love someone and have to just stand here while they’re – while they’re _dying_?” His voice cracked, and a sob forced its way past his lips. Pain crackled through him. “Oh, God, Merlin, he’s dying –”

Merlin stayed calm as ever. “You need to relax, Harry. Stay alert. You need to make sure he’s safe. Keep an eye on the camera monitors, keep your ear out for me, while we make sure that you haven’t been followed or somehow tracked. If you have, and if they get past our outer defenses, you’re the last line between them and Eggsy. Focus on that, Harry.”

“He’s dying –”

“No, Harry. Listen. Hear that silence? Those are the monitors. Hooked up to his heartrate, hooked up to his breathing. They’re silent, okay? That means everything’s fine. Eggsy’s just about as safe as he can be right now, so relax.”

The silence was unquestionable; Harry felt his trembling begin to slow. “Safe – Eggsy’s safe –”

“That’s it, Harry. Breathe, and relax. The mission, Harry.”

“The mission –”

“The mission,” Merlin said, and his voice was sure and steady like a drumbeat. “Pull yourself together, Harry, and keep him safe. Let the surgeons do their work, while you do yours.”

Harry took a shuddering breath and willed the shaking in his fingers to stop. He focused on the silence of the heartrate monitor, that blissful silence that told him Eggsy’s heart was still beating, that told him Eggsy was still alive, and felt his hyperventilating begin to slow.

“I need to check in on Lancelot and Gawain,” Merlin said after a few moments. “They’re due to be back shortly with the hostages – his mother and sister, just as he said; there were no others. You’ll be alright now?”

It wasn’t really a question; it was more of a formality. Harry needed to be alright whether he felt like it or not.

“Yes,” he answered anyway. “I’ll be alright. Go.”

“Right. I’ll keep you posted,” Merlin said. The corner of Harry’s glasses flashed red briefly to inform him that Merlin had signed off, and then there was silence, and then Harry was alone.

_He’ll be alright._

Harry clicked through the input channels on his glasses until he reached the one that would give him the feed from the camera monitors on the perimeter of Kingsman property, and focused on the stillness that met his eyes. There was no motion save the stirring of the grass as a breeze blew across it, the flicker of a butterfly that fluttered across the camera’s lens.

_Eggsy was like a butterfly._

A butterfly with broken wings. Golden dust rubbed off of the delicate lace that let it fly, fluttering, bent and broken.

_He’ll be okay._

Hours passed, and Harry sat motionless on the bench outside surgery. Exactly four sets of double doors separated him from the boy he loved; one that separated the surgical wing of Medical from the rest of HQ, one that sectioned off trauma care from the rest of the surgical wing, and two that led to the room where Eggsy’s life balanced precariously on the edge of a blade.

Four sets of double doors, but it felt like an ocean. An eternity.

Merlin spoke to him, at one point, to let him know that Eggsy’s family was safe in HQ. He didn’t provide any more details, other than that Lancelot was headed down to see him, and Gawain had taken over the cameras.

“Fine,” he said, and it sounded empty. Rehearsed. He felt like a shell of himself without Eggsy.

“You saved his life,” Roxy said, when she made it down to Medical. Her voice was gentle. It took Harry a few moments to realize that she was there, and another few moments for his brain to register what she had said. When it did, he didn’t know if it made him feel any better.

Roxy took his hands in hers; her thumbs pressed soothing circles into his skin, rubbing away the tension. Her hair smelled of gunpowder.

“It didn’t do shit if he dies in there,” Harry said, several minutes later. The response was far too late for it to be socially acceptable, but neither of them seemed to notice or care. Distantly, he realized that the shock blanket was back around his shoulders; Roxy must have put it there.

“He won’t. Think about who he has working on him, Harry. The best surgeons the world has ever seen, with the most advanced medical tech the world has ever seen. They haven’t lost a single person since Arthur put Kay in charge here, and that’s not about to change now. They know what they’re doing.”

“You can’t promise that,” Harry said, and his voice was hollow.

Roxy tilted her head. “Maybe not, but I know what’s likely and what’s not. And I’m not usually one to believe in these sorts of things, but I do think knowing you’ll be here waiting for him might be enough for him to pull through. The mind can play a role in these things, you know.”

Harry’s chest hurt. “If I’d noticed just a little sooner –”

“Stop beating yourself up, Harry,” Roxy chided, and her nails dug gently into the backs of Harry’s hands. They were dirty; she must have come straight to him from her end of the mission. “You saved his life. Nothing can change that. He’ll pull through.” She paused, and then stood. Harry’s hands slipped out of hers limply. “I can’t stay; Eggsy’s mum and sister need looking after. But I think Merlin’s headed down soon. I’ll have him bring you a shirt. And ice those ribs, okay?” Another pause. “He’ll pull through,” she said again quietly.

Harry had the feeling she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince him.

 

 

 

“Here.”

Harry looked up, blinking hard. He'd been pressing his thumbs into his eyes as he sat hunched over outside Eggsy's room, and spots swam across his vision.

“Good God, Harry, you're a mess.”

“Yes, I suppose I am,” Harry mumbled. He saw Merlin in front of him, holding something out in his hand that Harry gradually became aware was the shirt Roxy had promised. He took it and slipped it on numbly; he saw red, and stopped.

“Ah,” Harry said, looking at his hands. They were covered in blood. He followed the dark red stain up his forearms, lifted the bottom of the shirt he'd just put on, and saw it splattered over the front of his body. He still felt numb, as if he were someone else looking down on his body through a haze. Distantly, he wondered how he hadn’t noticed it earlier.

“It's Eggsy's,” Merlin said quietly.

“Ah,” Harry said again, and he felt bile rise in the back of his throat.

“Hey, hey,” Merlin murmured, crouching down in front of him. Harry's eyes still refused to focus; Merlin was a blur of tanned skin and dark wool sweater, standing out in stark contrast against the polished white floors. “Relax, Harry. He's fine now. Just like you told him, okay? Breathe.”

Harry drew in a painful, shuddering breath, feeling the comforting weight of Merlin's hand on his shoulder. He exhaled but his body refused to cooperate, and it came out as a shaky huff, far less steady than it should have been. Merlin hummed softly, rubbing his thumb firmly and soothingly into the hollow at the front of Harry's shoulder, and did not comment on it.

His breathing evened out. The red on his hands looked like dried paint now, not bright and red and hot and sticky like it had been just – God, was that this morning? Was it just this morning that he'd seen Eggsy shot in front of him?

“Keep breathing, Harry,” Merlin said softly.

Right – breathe –

His heart, which had started to flutter again, slowed, and the panic faded. His eyes focused again.

“Thank you, Merlin,” Harry said quietly, ages later, when he felt like he could speak.

“What for?”

Harry felt his chest clench as he looked at the other man, clearer in his vision now; the scar was faded but clearly visible on his left cheek, the skin puckered and angry. Distantly, he was aware that this was the first time he’d seen Merlin since before the mission had been assigned two months ago.

The scar was bigger than he thought it would be. Or perhaps it only seemed big because of the way it twisted the other man’s face.

Merlin saw his gaze shift, and his eyes softened. “Harry, you know how much I cared for him too,” he said gently.

“He shot you.” It was blunt, direct. There was no other way to say it.

A wry smile turned the corners of Merlin’s mouth. The left side was a little less responsive than the right, and it gave him a slightly lopsided look. “Oh, I know. And I still somehow find that I care for him. But I don’t trust him. I can’t even start thinking about trusting him until I hear his full story and decide that it makes sense, that it justifies what he did. But you still love him; I can see that too. I don’t think I could stand looking at you for the next twenty years if I let him die.”

Harry echoed his smile. “I don’t think I could either.”

“Look at me or look at yourself?”

“Both.” Harry reached out to touch Merlin’s arm. It was thinner than it had been before, atrophied after two months of bedrest out of the field. “And thank you for talking me through that.”

Merlin huffed a dry laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that rattled, and I never expected to. He was completely safe from your pursuers the whole surgery, of course, they were nowhere near HQ. But you needed something to focus on.”

“I did.” Harry shook his head. “I…my actions were unprofessional. I apologize. I was out of control of my emotions, and I was unable to perform my duties as I should have. It won’t happen again.”

“ _Harry_.” Merlin sounded half pained, half exasperated. He hesitated, and then said quietly, “For all that Kingsman expects of its agents, I daresay we don’t do a very good job of teaching them how to cope with the thought of a loved one in danger. I suppose that’s why we discourage relationships, now that I think about it.”

Harry managed a laugh; his throat was dry, and it came out hoarse. “Trying to prevent the problem before it arises, eh?”

“That’s the theory,” Merlin said wryly.

Harry huffed and shook his head. “We need to come up with a better theory.”

Merlin hummed. He sat down beside Harry, pressing the bag of ice gently to his ribs, taking the shock blanket that he’d left on the bench hours ago and wrapping it around his shoulders. Its weight was comforting, draping over him like a hug, and Harry started to feel a little more normal.

He knew it wouldn’t last. But it was good while it did.

 

 

 

Surgery ended at 2200 after fourteen grueling hours of work, during which Merlin replaced the bag of now-melted ice with a fresh bag. Harry thought Merlin was more responsible for icing his ribs than he was, patiently holding it against his side until he went numb and the swelling started to lessen. The surgery shouldn’t have been that long, really, except for the sheer amount of blood the boy had lost and the number of times they’d had to revive him. The surgeons came out exhausted, Kay carrying a tray containing the trackers she’d found in Eggsy’s body.

“This one was embedded in front of his C4 vertebra, relatively near his vocal cords,” Kay said, pointing to a small, black shape in the tray. “It looks like it was the most advanced one. If you would like to examine it, it’s yours, but it’s quite mangled now compared to what it probably was before. It looked to be overheating, and there was no other way we would have been able to get it out fast enough before it did some real and permanent damage to the surrounding tissue. This other one was in his eye; a scanner, potentially. No damage is expected to have been done to him by the removal process, but we apologize for being unable to keep the devices fully intact.”

Harry swallowed, felt bile rise in his throat. The trackers were the reason Eggsy had been kept under Ross’s control, he knew. They were the reason Eggsy had suffered as much as he did. They must have been.

“Is there any chance of gaining anything by examining them?” he asked.

Merlin shook his head. “Unlikely. I wouldn’t be able to figure out much more from their physical structures than I already know from the basic principles of building stuff of this sort; any brilliance would be in the code, and once they’ve been destroyed like this that code is gone.”

“Apologies,” Kay said quietly.

Merlin shook his head. “Don’t. Keeping him alive was more important than getting these to me.”

“Burn them,” Harry said. He ignored Merlin’s look, asking if perhaps it was an overreaction, reminding him to keep his emotions in check. “If they’re useless, burn them. Until they’re ash. I don’t want to see them again.”

Merlin hesitated, and then nodded once. “Alright. I’ll see to it.”

“How is he?” Harry asked, once Merlin had left.

“He’ll be fine, but it was bad.” Kay shook her head. She looked exhausted. “We haven’t seen anything that bad in a while.”

Harry swallowed. “How bad?”

“You want details?”

Harry swallowed again, clenched his jaw. “Yes.”

“Alright.” Kay sighed. “He had two gunshot wounds; one that punctured his left lung and caused it to collapse, one that perforated his bowel. Each in several places. No exit wounds, and it was messy. The bullets must have been designed to explode on impact; instead of finding intact bullets, we found shrapnel all throughout his thoracic and abdominal cavities, hitting multiple organs and some of the pieces nicking several major arteries. With the amount of shrapnel in him, it was lucky that none of those arteries were severely damaged or severed, with the exception of his left renal artery, which was cut almost clean through. The shrapnel remained lodged in place, effectively stopping immediate and deadly blood loss. We removed all of the shrapnel that needed to be and could safely be removed and we were able to stabilize him, but it took a while, and a lot of blood.

“As for recovery, he’ll need to stay for at least a week to allow us to monitor the first stages of his recovery, and after that at least four weeks before he can do any physical activity beyond short walks and other similarly nonstrenuous movements. There may be complications in the future because of the extent of internal damage and there will be massive scarring which may require surgery if it starts to affect organ function. We tried to be as non-invasive as we could but it was difficult due to the amount of damage we needed to repair, and we were unable to remove all of the shrapnel for safety reasons. But any shrapnel that remains in his body is safe; the body will be able to accommodate it, though it may work its way to the surface in the future, in which case he can return for minor removal procedures if he so desires. All in all, a long and difficult procedure.”

Harry let out a few shaky breaths; it was a lot to take in. “But he’s alright now. He’s alive.”

“Yes. But there’s something else you should know,” Kay said. Her voice was quiet. “I thought it best to tell you first, considering your history with him. I don’t know where he’s been the past two years, and I don’t know what those trackers were doing in his body, but he’s covered in scars. All over his chest, his stomach, his back, and several on his legs. It looks like what you’d expect from a torture victim.”

 _Torture victim._ Harry’s vision spun for a moment. “I – thank you,” he managed, when he was able to make himself speak. It sounded slightly strangled. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Of course, nothing can be said for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he displays symptoms of trauma, manifesting physically and mentally.” Kay’s expression softened. “Medical is often slightly disconnected from everything else at HQ, so I don’t know what he’s done or why he’s here, but be gentle with him.” There was a pause. “Be gentle with yourself, too. Morien told us you were the one who brought him in. You saved his life just as much as we did.”

Harry swallowed. If he’d been just a few moments later, he would’ve lost Eggsy.

No.

He couldn’t think about that.

“You’ll be able to see him in a few hours, once we’ve monitored him to make sure he stays stable,” Kay said. “We’ll let you know when.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, numbly.

“Of course. Now please, get some rest.”

Harry nodded, and sat back down on the bench.

He didn’t rest.

Merlin came by a few hours later, when Harry had numbed himself into some kind of stupor. He told him that the trackers had been burned, that even the ashes had been discarded. But Harry knew that the trackers weren’t the reason Merlin had come to see him; there was something else that Merlin wanted to confront him about, something else that it might have been alright to remain willfully ignorant about earlier, but that, after what had happened today – yesterday, really, now that it was almost three in the morning – could not be ignored.

“He remembers.”

Ah, yes. There it was; the truth.

Merlin’s voice was accusing; Harry could hear a thrum of anger in the Scottish brogue. It was a fact that he stated, and Merlin knew it was fact. There was no use denying it. He would have seen it in the boy’s tears as he lay pinned beneath Harry’s body in the clearing, heard it in the boy’s voice as he cried out for Harry when he was bleeding out, when he was being wheeled away.

“Yes,” Harry said.

“And you knew he remembered. You _expected_ him to.”

The evidence was all there. Harry didn’t need to confirm it for Merlin to know that it was true.

There was a steely glint in Merlin’s eye. “Do you care to explain?”

Harry clenched his jaw and looked away. “Surely you can guess.”

“I’d like to hear it.”

Harry’s breath left him in a soft hiss. “I know it went against regulation –”

“Our _tightest_ regulation, Harry,” Merlin said, and he sounded angry now. Harry glanced at him, saw his eyes flash black, saw the stoniness of his face; Eggsy was out of surgery now. He was alive, he was safe, and the time for comfort was over. “It’s in place for a reason. You know that letting a candidate go with memories intact could lead to our complete destruction. It almost happened once, and it could happen again.”

Harry looked away. “I know.”

“And still, you didn’t do it. You let him remember anyway, _knowing_ what risk you were taking.”

“I love him,” Harry bit out, and he hated how desperate it sounded, hated how pathetic he knew the excuse was. “I love him more than anything. And when I thought about what we might have had – what we _almost_ had, except that he’s too fucking _good_ to shoot his dog – I couldn't – I just couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t stand the thought of him looking at me and not knowing who I was. I couldn’t stand the thought of – of him _forgetting_ , and I couldn't stand the thought of knowing he didn’t want to forget and knowing that I'd darted him anyway. The guilt of that, Merlin! I don’t think I could live with the guilt. But I knew he wouldn’t betray us if I didn't do it, so it was – there was no question for me.”

“You don’t _know_ he didn’t betray us,” Merlin hissed. He pointed a finger angrily in the direction of the operation room. “He had _trackers_ in his body, for fuck’s sake! He _shot_ me, and had been ordered to shoot you! He killed God knows how many people, I don’t even want to count right now. Or did you forget?”

“That doesn’t mean he said anything.” It sounded ridiculous, even to him, but the thought that Eggsy might have betrayed them, might have betrayed Harry’s trust and Harry’s love –

Merlin looked incredulous. “Harry, are you being serious? Remember what you are. You’re a _spy_. Kingsman’s top spy, no less. You can’t let emotions cloud your mind. You need to distance yourself.”

Harry shook his head. It was impossible. Eggsy didn’t betray them, willingly or not. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – think about the alternative. And the boy had put himself between Harry and a gun. “I know he didn’t say anything. I know _him_ , Merlin, I know what his loyalty is capable of.”

“And you were willing to bet your _life_ on that?” Merlin was practically shouting now. “Putting down your fucking gun? What the hell were you thinking, Harry? What if you had been wrong? What if he’d shot you? You _know_ he would’ve killed you if he’d shot you then. Killed you, as he would’ve killed me if that car hadn’t crashed into the lamp post when it did.”

He couldn’t stop himself from flinching back at Merlin’s words. “I love him,” he said, and it sounded bitter, broken, pathetic. “I had to believe he wouldn’t. I don’t know what it would’ve done to me otherwise, if he’d…if I’d believed for just a moment that he could really shoot me.”

“So how much of that was your heart speaking and how much if it was your head? Don’t let emotions dictate your logic again, Harry.” Merlin’s face softened. “Look. I know this is hard, but you’re a Kingsman spy, and you can’t let your feelings for him cloud your judgment. That’s why we discourage relationships, and you know that.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I know it’s too late for that now. What’s happened has happened, and we just have to make the most of it.” He ran a critical eye over Harry, and when he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “You're a mess. You need a shower.”

Harry glanced once again towards the doors, beyond which Eggsy lay, fragile and shattered like broken glass.

Merlin shook his head, patting Harry's shoulder. “Go on. I'll make sure he's alright.”

Still, Harry hesitated.

“ _Go_. I may not trust him, but that doesn't mean that I don't still care for him or for you. I know how much you love him, and I, perhaps unfortunately, love you enough to value that.” A soft smile lifted Merlin’s features, more so on the right side than the left. “He's safe now; he made it through the surgery. It's just healing, and he needs sleep for that. There's nothing you can do when he's asleep.”

“But if he wakes up, if he needs me -”

“He's made it without you for two years, Harry,” Merlin said. He said it gently, but it hurt nevertheless, and Harry could hear the implied reminder that he couldn’t be sure Eggsy – _his_ Eggsy – was still there. “He can wait another few minutes. And he's knocked out. He's not expected to wake up for at least another few hours.”

Harry clenched his hands into a fist. “I...alright. But you'll let me know if anything changes.”

“Of course. Now go.”

 

 

 

Harry was halfway down the hall towards the showers when he heard someone call his name; he turned to see Roxy headed towards him. She was still in her suit, and her eyes were dull with exhaustion.

“How is he?”

Harry hesitated. It took a few moments for him to be able to force the words out. “He’s alive. Merlin insists that he’s alright, but I…” He trailed off. “I apologize. I never asked how you were doing.”

“Me? Oh, don’t worry about me,” Roxy said with a small smile. “I’ll be fine. As long as I know he’s going to be okay and that you’re going to be okay.”

“‘Okay’ is subjective,” Harry said, somewhat unable to meet her eyes.

“I know. I…I haven’t slept,” Roxy confessed. “All this time, just pacing around Merlin’s office…I think he’s getting quite tired of me,” she said with a huffed laugh. It sounded hollow.

“Eggsy’s alright,” Harry said, and forced himself to look up, to hold her gaze. “I just spoke with Kay. It…it wasn’t good.” He swallowed. “It was downright _shit_ , if I’m honest. But they said, despite possible complications in the future, that he should make a full recovery.”

All of the tension that Harry hadn’t even noticed before suddenly seemed to lift from Roxy’s shoulders, and she closed her eyes for a few moments. “Thank God,” she whispered.

“How is his family?” Harry asked, after a pause.

Roxy’s expression softened; Harry knew she had never actually met Daisy in person, but she’d always wanted to ever since she and Eggsy had been recruits together, talking about their lives and backgrounds despite instructions not to. (It was, perhaps, the only order she’d ever outright disobeyed. In that respect, she was more like Eggsy’s father than Eggsy was.) “I just got back from checking on them and making sure they’re settled in. They’re rattled but otherwise fine, and currently soundly asleep. We decided not to tell them what really happened, considering Daisy’s age and the fact that Michelle’s alone and…well, you know.” She paused, and when she spoke again, she spoke carefully. “Merlin told me what happened.”

Harry’s heart jolted dully. “You mean in the – in the –”

“In the clearing. And…in the cab.”

“Ah. Right.” Suddenly, his vision seemed fuzzy, and sudden panic caused bile to rise in his throat. “He would have died for me,” Harry said, and his breath came harsh and fast, and he couldn’t breathe, and it hurt –

“Hey, hey. You’re alright.” Roxy’s hands were on his shoulders again, fingers squeezing, supporting him as he staggered and guiding him to sit against the wall. Her voice was quiet, soothing, her touch firm and grounding, and his hyperventilation began to slow.

“Panic attacks,” Harry said suddenly. Numbly. His voice hoarse and shaking. It hadn’t been quite that, he knew, but that had only been because he had been able to stop it, because Roxy had been there.

Roxy hummed softly. She was sitting beside him now, a vacant look in her eyes. “It’ll happen,” she said simply, as if it was something she knew and accepted – and it was. Every Kingsman agent experienced more than enough trauma for a single lifetime, Harry knew, and it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that a good portion of them experienced at least some symptoms of PTSD.

“You didn’t dart him,” she said presently, once his breathing had returned to normal, once the panic had once again faded into numbness as his mind tried to protect itself from the memory of what it had gone through. Of what it was still going through.

Harry blinked once, slowly. “No,” he said.

She hummed again. “I didn’t think you would.”

At that, a small, dry smile tugged at the corner of Harry’s mouth. “Doubting your elder’s respect for authority, are you?”

Roxy snorted. “Don’t call yourself my elder. Eggsy’s my age too, you know. I mean it’s true,” she added with a short, huffed laugh, “but it still makes it sound like you’re a pervy old man for loving him.”

Harry’s heart thumped once, dully, in his chest. “For loving him,” he repeated numbly. He began to laugh, and it sounded wild even to his ears. “I love him,” he said, and his laughs turned into sobs, ugly, wracking sobs that shook his whole body, tears streaming hot down his cheeks and dripping from his chin onto his shirt, where they left big wet spots that clung to his skin.

“I love him,” he said, and he cried, and Roxy held him.

 

 

 

Somehow, he reached the showers. He stood under the downpour; it was too hot, and it burned him, but it didn’t matter, he needed to get clean, he needed to get Eggsy’s blood off of his hands –

The water turned pink at his feet, swirling down the drain, bubbly with soap. So much soap. Too much soap. Too much blood. Eggsy’s blood.

He sank to the ground. The water eddied around him, and his chest heaved, and his eyes burned, and he cried.

 

 

 

He stepped out of the shower an hour later. It was too long, and he felt a vague, distant twinge of guilt for this most recent contribution to environmental destruction. He picked up the shirt Merlin had given him earlier; the inside of it had a dusting of dried blood on it, a faint stain of red that had come from it brushing up against the dried blood on his skin.

He swallowed down the nausea and slipped it on, and when he saw Merlin a few minutes later he had carefully reassembled his composure.

He thought it funny, a little, that he’d gunned down over two hundred people without a second glance, without a backwards thought, that he’d seen so many people die in front of him over the course of his life without batting an eye, and yet a brush with death by one young boy had sent him to his knees.

“No change,” Merlin said, as soon as Harry was within earshot. “As far as they know, he’s going to be sleeping for a while.” His eyes softened, his gaze running briefly up and down Harry’s body. “You look exhausted. You could probably do with some sleep too.”

“If I sleep, I sleep here,” Harry said.

Merlin gave him a small smile. “I expected you to say that. And I know I can’t force you to go home and sleep in a proper bed. But _do_ sleep, yes?”

“You’re not any more rested than I am,” Harry replied. He was standing in front of the door to the ward as if his will itself would convince the nurses to let him in early. He knew it wasn’t logical. He didn’t care.

“Stop dodging the question, Harry.”

Harry was silent for a while. “I’ll do my best,” he said finally, honestly, to the door. “I can’t make any other promises.”

Merlin hummed; Harry felt his hand on his shoulder. The weight was comforting. “Sometimes your best attempt is all you can ask for. I’ll let you know when the nurses give us the green light to go in.”

Harry swallowed, focused on his breathing. When Merlin left with a quiet word that he’d be in his office, he made his knees bend, made himself turn and sit down on the bench.

He didn’t sleep. Eggsy was waiting for him every time he closed his eyes, bleeding out, his blood staining the ground crimson. He begged Harry to kill him, to end his pain, and Harry would put a gun to his head and Eggsy would cry out in fear, and no matter what Harry did it was wrong, no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t save the boy he loved. He watched Eggsy die in front of him, again and again, felt his life slip away in his hands and his body grow cold.

No, he didn’t sleep.

Merlin came by a few hours later; the soft touch on Harry’s shoulder roused him from his brooding, half-awake stupor, and he was instantly alert.

“Eggsy?”

Merlin’s eyes were guarded. “Still sleeping, but you can see him now. But – wait.”

Harry stopped. His hand was already against the door, his heart hammering in his chest.

“Be careful,” Merlin warned. “I know you love him, but don’t let that get in the way of your common sense. I wouldn’t trust him.”

“He was manipulated,” Harry said. “He had to have been. There would be no other reason for his family to have been held hostage.”

_And his scars. He was tortured._

But he couldn’t say that. It felt like something private, a secret part of Eggsy that he should have had the choice to reveal. So he said nothing.

The bright lights glinted off of Merlin’s glasses as he shook his head. “We can’t know that for sure yet; for all we know, it could have been a front. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t see him, or that you can’t be happy to see him. We got all of the trackers out and there aren’t any bugs on him or in the room, but be careful what you say. Be careful how close you let yourself get to him. If it turns out he can’t be trusted –”

“He can be,” Harry insisted. “He did this to save his family. He wouldn’t stage something like this. He wouldn’t use them like that. And you saw his guilt just as much as I did, Merlin. You heard him when he…you heard what he asked me to do, over and over. You saw how it tortured him. Now that he knows he’s safe, and they’re safe, he’ll tell us the truth.”

Merlin sighed. “Just stop every once in a while and consider how much of this is what you want to believe, and how much of this is what we can actually believe, alright? Good. Now go on in there.”

 

 

 

As much as Harry wanted to see him, _needed_ to see him, he couldn’t have prepared himself for the way the sight of the boy limp and lifeless on the ICU bed struck him like a hammer blow to his chest, sending the air from his lungs, the strength from his legs. It felt like a lifetime before he was able to take his first step forward, and another lifetime before he was able to take his second.

It felt like an eternity had passed before he had crossed the room, and he sat numbly in the chair by the bed. He felt himself reaching out for the boy, his fingers trembling, because his mind was in chaos and it felt like Eggsy’s touch was the only thing that would hold him together. Eggsy’s touch, reassuring him that he was really there, that he was really alive.

But he couldn’t. It felt like a violation.

Eggsy slept. Harry sat there beside him and watched him, studied the new planes of his face, the hollows around his eyes and under his cheeks, the sharp, straight edge of his nose. He looked at how thin he was, how pale he was, saw the way the IV poked into soft skin and the scars that peeked out from under the seams of his hospital gown and the tube that came out of a hole in the side of his chest to drain any fluid that might put pressure on his lung. He forced himself to stare at it all. To _see_ him, no matter how much it hurt, because it burned like fire and cut like a knife to see how much he had changed, but seeing him was also like air to a drowning man’s lungs, like water to a parched man’s throat, and Harry took him in like he was both of those things.

He listened, too. The ventilator was a soft noise in the background, sometimes lulling Harry into a stupor, sometimes the sound startling him awake again. When it was a regular noise, a constant, wavelike whoosh in the background, it was comforting, letting him hear Eggsy’s breaths. It was early morning around them, and Kingsman Medical often had the luxury of affording each patient their own recovery room, but he could hear the muffled footsteps of nurses outside the door, the talking that was quieter through the iron, the sounds of the outside world waking up and starting a new day. The noises calmed him, let him know that he and Eggsy weren’t alone, that they were surrounded by people who had kept Eggsy alive and who would continue to do whatever they could to keep him that way.

Still, Eggsy slept. _I love you_ , Harry tapped against his own knee. Relentlessly, endlessly, because no matter how much he said it, it still wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

Eggsy slept for hours. The nurses came in twice every three hours on their rounds to check on him, change his IV bags, and do whatever other duties were required of their profession, but all of the monitors indicated that things were normal, and they didn’t wake him. The ventilator was removed after Eggsy had been on it for twelve hours.

Harry watched over him, and told him he loved him, and eventually, when the exhaustion finally took hold, slipped into sleep.

 

 

 

Eggsy woke thirteen hours after Harry had been allowed to enter the room. His eyes flickered open, the usual brilliance gone from them, bright green faded to dullness. Harry saw a brief glimmer of recognition in them, and that was all. He was instantly awake, his chest almost hurting with relief, until he saw the boy shake his head.

Harry’s words stuck in his throat, and he saw the boy’s fingers on the side of the hospital bed.

A short series of taps.

_Tracker._

Harry breathed a sigh. It wasn’t rejection. He didn’t think he could bear rejection. “It’s out,” he said softly, and he was calm now. Grounded and centered, now that Eggsy was awake. “Don’t worry, we scanned everything. One tracker in your spine, one scanner in your eye. They’ve been removed and destroyed. Your family is safe here at HQ.”

Eggsy was silent. Evidence, Harry realized. He was waiting for evidence.

Harry huffed a laugh. “Don’t you trust me, Eggsy?” Or was Merlin right? Was it stupid to trust him so easily? Was it stupid to wear his heart on his sleeve like this, to throw caution to the winds as soon as he could speak to the boy he loved?

He saw the hesitation in the boy’s eyes, the flash of pain. He tapped again.

 _Yes_.

Lightness. It was like a weight was lifted off of his chest, letting him breathe again. _Be careful_ , Merlin’s voice whispered in the back of his mind. _You don’t know if you can trust him. You don’t know if he’s really the Eggsy you used to know._

“They’re destroyed. Dissected, disabled, burned. That last part was my addition, really,” Harry said, feeling a rush of anger as he said it. “I couldn’t bear to look at them, to see what it was that had kept you from me.” Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? It was the trackers, letting Eggsy’s superiors know exactly where he was, perhaps even what he was saying, judging from his behavior and his silence. It was the trackers preventing Eggsy from coming back to Harry.

“You’re free of them, Eggsy,” Harry said gently, as if speaking from that assumption would be enough to make it irrevocably true. “They can’t follow you anymore. They haven’t been able to follow you for a while now; Merlin had the signals blocked almost immediately after you…in the cab. Roxy was sent to get your mother and sister. They were back here before you were even out of surgery.”

_Safe?_

“Yes,” Harry said, and he dared to reach out and touch the boy’s hand, willing his heart not to ache when Eggsy couldn’t help but flinch away. “Yes,” he repeated. “They’re unharmed. You can see them as soon as you like; I’ll bring them up personally.”

Eggsy let out a shaky breath, and then another. It took a few moments for Harry to realize that they were sobs, his chest beginning to heave and his eyes watering and his heartrate monitor beeping in alarm with how fast his heartrate had shot up.

“Eggsy, Eggsy,” Harry murmured, leaning over the boy and brushing the hair off of his forehead, trying to prevent his own fingers from shaking. “Shh, love, it’s alright. Just breathe.”

“Harry,” Eggsy breathed out, and his voice was hoarse. Harry felt Eggsy’s fingers against the back of his palm and he took the boy’s hand, squeezing it gently, trying not to think about the delicate bones of his wrist and soft veins that ran just below the skin’s surface, trying not to think about how close the boy had come to death and how easy it would be for someone to kill him if Harry wasn’t there to protect him, to keep him safe. He focused on the boy’s voice instead, how his name sounded on the parched tongue, how the vowels were rounded in the boy’s mouth the way they never were with anyone else.

_It’s alright, love._

Eggsy swallowed and made a soft noise, as if it caused him pain. “Harry,” he said again.

“I’m here, darling,” Harry whispered, and felt a smile stretch itself across his face, felt a warm flutter in his chest as he heard his name cross the boy’s lips for the first time in two years. “I’m here. You’re safe now. Just rest.”

Eggsy struggled to speak. “What time is it?”

“About eight in the evening,” Harry said softly. “It’s the thirteenth of August now.” He huffed a laugh. “You’ve been out for a while. How do you feel?”

“I’m…tired,” Eggsy said, and his voice rasped slightly, scratching in his throat. “Numb. Slightly nauseous.”

“Morphine sometimes has side effects,” Harry murmured.

“Have you slept?” Eggsy asked. “Eaten?”

A faint smile curved the corners of Harry’s lips. “Don’t worry about me, love, I’m alright. Just focus on getting better yourself now.”

“Why…why do you keep calling me that?” Eggsy asked.

“Call you what?”

Eggsy hesitated. “Darling,” he said. “Love. Stuff like that.”

Harry’s breath left him in a soft huff, his heart giving a heavy thump. “I…I can stop, if you like.”

Eggsy hesitated again. “I just…I don’t understand.”

“I…well, I care about you, Eggsy,” Harry said softly, and he didn’t miss how the boy flinched back at his words. “I care about you…very much.” His voice shook, and he swallowed. “I suppose the words just slip out.”

There was a silence. Harry’s heart thudded in his chest. He could see confusion on the boy’s face, as if he was struggling to come to terms with Harry’s words. As if he could hear that Harry cared for him, that Harry loved him, but he couldn’t understand it.

“I can stop,” Harry whispered.

Eggsy’s hands tightened. “No,” he said, after a long pause. “No, I…it’s okay.” Another pause. “How…how bad is it?”

Harry’s chest clenched suddenly, and pain sprung up in his ribs. “Two gunshot wounds,” he said quietly. “They said you’ll be fine.” He knew the boy was changing the subject and that Harry’s answer hadn’t been enough, but that was something for another time, for when Eggsy wanted to talk about it.

Eggsy closed his eyes. “How bad?” he repeated.

Harry took a deep breath. His chest clenched, and it took several tries before he could make himself speak. “One between your seventh and eighth ribs. Punctured lung. The other in your abdomen. They said…they said there would be scarring, and possibly future complications just because of the…the…”

“The shrapnel,” Eggsy said. His voice was hoarse, and he swallowed. “I know.”

Harry nodded and squeezed the boy’s hand. “You died,” he said, and he couldn’t keep his voice from shaking, couldn’t keep his hands from trembling. “On the table. You died, and they brought you back.” He swallowed against the constricting of his throat and blinked hard against the burning at the back of his eyes, tried not to let the boy know how scared he’d been.

Eggsy drew in a shuddering breath; the air rattled in his throat, and Harry saw his face tighten with pain. “There were four gunshots,” he rasped. “Are you – what happened to you? And before – I heard you and Weber in the building, and I didn’t know –” He broke off.

“I’m alright,” Harry said with a soft smile. It didn’t escape his notice how the boy had changed the subject, but he didn’t comment on it; he couldn’t blame the boy for not wanting to dwell on his own death. “Don’t worry about me, love, I’m alright. Bulletproof suits, remember? I might have a bruise, nothing more.” Eggsy didn’t need to know about his ribs. He didn’t need more to worry about.

“Right.” Eggsy swallowed. “Yeah, I remember.” He swallowed again, with some difficulty; the movement seemed to cause him pain.

“You remember,” Harry repeated, and his voice shook, his throat constricted on the sob that he couldn’t hold back anymore. “You remember we had bulletproof suits. Why did you do it, Eggsy? You knew. You fucking _knew_ , and you still pushed me away, put yourself in – in –” He broke off. His vision was blurred. He was angry, now, inexplicably. “You almost _died_ to protect me.”

Eggsy seemed to shrink away from Harry’s words, flinching back from him. Harry regretted it instantly, the harshness of his voice, the pain he’d inexcusably let through as anger.

“I’m sorry,” he said, softly, shakily. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be angry, I just – I was _so scared_ , Eggsy. I didn’t want to lose you. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.”

Eggsy took a few deep, shuddering breaths, and Harry realized that he was terrified.

“I’m sorry,” Harry repeated, guilt washing over him, engulfing him, and it hurt him, burned him like fire. “I’m so sorry, Eggsy, I –” He broke off. “I…I can leave, if –”

“No.” Eggsy reached out, and his grip was surprisingly strong but his eyes were wide, pained, vulnerable. Pleading with Harry to stay, even though Harry had been so angry with him, even though Harry had scared him.

So Harry stayed. He took the boy’s hand in his, stroked the pale, cold skin of his wrist with his thumb, until he was calmer.

Eggsy spoke, several minutes later. “I – I tried to kill you.”

Harry shook his head. “Please, don’t worry about that. Just rest now, recover.”

“But I – my gun went off,” Eggsy said, his hand tightening in Harry’s. “When you – when you electrocuted me. And the other – the others –”

Harry flinched; the things he’d said came rushing back to him now, and with the memories another wave of guilt. _Are you going to shoot me like you shot Merlin?_ _I don’t suppose I mean anymore to you now than Merlin did when you shot him. I don’t suppose I mean any more to you now than all of those other people did when you shot them._

As if Eggsy needed to be reminded of what he’d done.

Because he hadn’t wanted to, had he? He hadn’t wanted to shoot Merlin, to take innocent lives.

 _Kill me_ , the boy had begged.

“I’m fine,” Harry murmured, and he saw the doubt that flickered across the boy’s vision, clouding the once-brilliant green even further. “I’m alright. Roxy and I dealt with all of them; she’s alright too. As for your gun, it went off over my shoulder and didn’t hit anything. I promise.”

“But still –” Eggsy broke off, swallowing hard and blinking rapidly. “I _could’ve_ killed you.”

“So could’ve many things. But you didn’t,” Harry said. “And that’s what matters.” _And you tried to save me instead. Does that not count for anything to you?_

He could feel the increase in the boy’s heartrate in the pulse against his fingertips, could see the increase in his breathing by the way his chest rose and fell. “I had to protect my family,” he whispered. “I had to. I had no other choice, there was nothin’ else I could’ve done –”

“I know,” Harry soothed, stroking small circles into Eggsy’s wrist. He could feel a slight roughness of skin there, as if the boy had once fought against chains, and swallowed against the anger that rose in the back of his throat. In this case, Merlin was right; he couldn’t let emotions overwhelm him.

“I could’ve killed you,” Eggsy began, and then broke off with a whimper of pain, his eyes squeezing shut and his body twisting.

“Shh,” Harry murmured. “Please, Eggsy, don’t. I’m alright.” He dared to reach out and touch the boy’s abdomen gently; the covers were only drawn up to his waist, and the bandages peeked out from under the hospital shirt that had been given to him. “Does it hurt? I can turn up the morphine if you like.”

Eggsy bit his lip. “I – yeah,” he whispered, and Harry felt his hand tighten in his grasp. “Thanks.”

Harry hummed softly, giving the boy’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Anything.”

“Ross,” Eggsy began, and his voice cracked. “Ross –”

For a moment, Harry didn’t know what he was talking about, and then suddenly the realization hit. “Your handler?” Harry asked quietly.

Eggsy nodded hesitantly.

_Shit. Weber, Loussac, Atkins – they weren’t saying Boss, they were saying Ross. The name of the man behind all of this._

“We’re looking for him now, based on the little information Merlin was able to get from the tracker as he was disabling it. But it’s not enough if we’re going to find him anytime soon. You’ll need to help us.”

Eggsy looked bewildered. “You…you trust me,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“I do,” Harry said. His voice did not waver.

Eggsy blinked in confusion, his gaze still glassy and hazy from the drugs. “Why?”

_Because I love you, and I don’t want to think about the alternative._

“Because when you were confronted with the choice to betray me or be gutted by your stepfather’s knife, you stayed silent. Because when you were confronted with the choice to betray Kingsman or be killed by an oncoming train, you chose death without a second thought.” Harry said instead. He paused. “Because you didn’t hurt me even when it would have been so easy. I was compromised. You had a knife and a gun – which, mind, only went off because I electrocuted you. It would have been so easy for you to subdue me, but in the end, you did exactly the opposite.”

_You nearly died to save me._

“But I…I tried to…I _meant_ to kill you.” Eggsy’s voice trembled, and Harry could see the anguish in the lines of his body. “That’s why I was there; to kill you or to do whatever it took to bring Kingsman down. And the video – fuck, Harry, I didn’t know how else –”

Harry gave his hand a squeeze. “I know. And I also know that Ross held your family captive and that as soon as you knew they were safe you were able to speak to me. Perhaps it’s foolish,” he admitted with a small smile. “But we can worry about that later. Just rest now, and get better, and then you can help us find him.”

Eggsy’s jaw clenched; muscles shifted in the hollows of his cheeks. “Ross,” he said again.

“I know, love. We’re looking into it,” Harry assured him. His thumb was still on the boy’s forehead and it slipped to the corner of the boy’s eyes, wiping away the wetness that pooled there. “We’ll find him, and we’ll take him down. He won’t ever get to you or anyone else again.”

“Soon,” Eggsy said, and Harry could hear the panic rising in his voice. “You have to go after him soon, he knows you’ve got me an’ that I’ll tell you everythin’ you need –”

“We’ll find him,” Harry repeated, and his voice was firm. A promise.

_And when we find him, I’ll take him down myself._

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t have official medical training or experience yet so everything I described is based on what I found on Google


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In order to go after the man who held Eggsy captive the past two years, Kingsman needs information that only Eggsy has. But getting that information proves to be more difficult than anticipated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for PTSD/reactions to trauma.

HARRY

 

Harry stayed by Eggsy’s side until the boy had fallen asleep, but even then, he couldn’t bring himself to leave. He watched over him until far past nightfall, looking at the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, trying not to think about the utter silence of his breaths and why he had to have learned to breathe that way. Eggsy had reached out for him just before slipping back under and Harry had kept his hand there, clasped loosely in Eggsy’s fingers, until Merlin called him out for a debriefing and he was forced to part.

By then, everyone knew what had happened; the whispers followed him through the halls as he headed towards the dining room.

“ _It’s Eggsy.”_

“ _Eggsy Unwin?”_

“ _Yes, him. He was Galahad’s recruit, what, two years ago?”_

“ _Lee Unwin’s son?”_

“ _Can you believe it?”_

But then they’d see Harry walk past and fall silent. He was Galahad, the best agent to have ever graced Kingsman’s ranks, and they couldn’t question him. A little voice in the back of his mind told him that perhaps they should, and perhaps, in time, they would, but not now.

Merlin, Roxy, Percival, and Arthur were in the room by the time Harry walked in. The debrief lasted about two hours, most of which Harry spent distracted, and ended with the conclusion that while they’d succeeded in bringing in Garlon alive, there was still more work to be done.

“We need answers,” Merlin said after the debrief, when he and Harry were the only ones left in the room.

“I know,” Harry said.

“Soon,” Merlin pressed.

“Let him rest,” Harry said, his exhaustion giving little more heat to his words than he’d intended, and he saw the way Merlin’s eyes flashed, the way he clenched his jaw.

“You told me yourself, he wants us to go after Ross. The problem is, we have nothing more to go on right now than we had to begin with. We have no idea who Ross is, if Ross is who this person really is or if it’s a fake identity. Hell, we don’t even have a surname!”

“He _needs_ to _rest_ ,” Harry hissed. “You don’t know what he’s been through. You didn’t see him every time I mentioned his family, mentioned what he did. You didn’t see his fear. If you push him, he’ll crack.”

There was a silence.

“Alright,” Merlin said finally. “We all need to rest. You go sleep for a bit. When he wakes, we’ll see how he’s doing, and we’ll try and get something out of him if it looks like he can handle it.”

Harry hesitated. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll be in his room.”

“I meant in a bed,” Merlin sighed, exasperated. “If you refuse to go home, at least find someplace that has somewhere you can lie down. The dorms, one of Medical’s spare beds, I don’t know.”

“He wanted me to stay,” Harry said, and his voice shook.

“I – okay. Fine. His room.” Another pause. “I know I sound harsh, Harry. I’m sorry. I just want to stop this Ross guy before he kills again, and the only way we can do that is if we can get Eggsy to cooperate. I’ll be as gentle as I can with him while still getting something out of him.”

Harry clenched his jaw. He knew Merlin had a point – a very good point – about needing information to act, information that only Eggsy had. He knew that as a Kingsman agent, it was his duty to uphold order and justice and to fight to bring down those who threatened safety and peace in the world. He knew that if it had been anyone else except Eggsy, he would wholeheartedly agree with Merlin and do whatever needed to be done, within reason, to get what they could. But it was Eggsy they were talking about. Eggsy was hurt, he was scared, he had just barely survived getting shot and torn up by shrapnel. It felt wrong to press him so soon afterwards without giving him time to rest, to breathe.

“Alright, Harry?” Merlin asked. His voice was gentle but guarded.

Harry swallowed. “Alright.”

“Good. Now go get some sleep. Let me know as soon as he’s awake again.”

“I will.”

Merlin looked at him for a long moment, and then nodded. “Right. I’ll see you in the morning.”

 

 

 

Eggsy woke at 1023 the next day. The nurses did bloodwork, checked his vitals, brought breakfast down to his room – modified, of course, for the surgery he’d just gone through – and raised the back of his bed so it was more a chair than anything else. Helps prevent blood clots, pneumonia, and a bunch of other things, the nurses had said, and gentle movement would help him recover. Eggsy would do breathing exercises to help with healing for the first few days, and then, depending on how well he was handling those, he’d move onto building up strength to walk again.

In the time that Eggsy had been awake, Harry hadn’t spoken to him about Ross or anything that had happened to him in the past two years. He’d thought it best to wait for Merlin, to limit the questioning to as short as possible. He didn’t know the extent of what the boy had gone through, but Kay’s words echoed in his ears.

 _He’s covered in scars_. _Be gentle with him._

Merlin showed up fifteen minutes after the nurses had left. He was gentle, as he’d promised, but it soon became very clear that something was wrong.

“Hello, Eggsy,” Merlin said with a small smile, closing the door behind him and pulling up a chair. “Harry.”

Eggsy swallowed, almost nervously. Harry saw how his eyes shifted down to Merlin’s cheek, saw how his face paled, saw how his lips thinned. Earlier that morning, Harry had told him that Merlin was alright, that he was alive and that there had been no permanent damage done, and Eggsy hadn’t said anything, but he’d seemed confused, and then he’d changed the subject.

Harry hadn’t questioned it. But after what had happened next, he wished that he had.

“How are you feeling?” Merlin asked.

“I’m…I’m alright,” Eggsy said quietly, uncertainly.

“That’s good to hear,” Merlin said.

Eggsy’s eyes were still focused on Merlin’s face. “What…what happened, exactly?” he asked slowly, almost nervously, and there was no doubt that he was asking about the jagged, puckered scar that dominated the left side of Merlin’s face.

 _He doesn’t remember_ , Harry realized, with an overwhelming feeling of dread. He knew what this was, and now that he saw it he realized that he should’ve known to expect it, but it was a shock all the same. He suddenly understood why the boy had been confused that morning when Harry had brought it up; his mind had blocked out the memory, had prevented him from thinking about it and remembering it. As far as Eggsy knew, nothing had happened two months ago on a street corner. As far as Eggsy knew, he’d never shot Merlin.

Merlin seemed similarly troubled; Harry saw Merlin glance at him out of the corner of his eye. _You take this one_ , the look meant.

“He…was shot,” Harry said. He picked his words carefully, testing out the waters, seeing how much Eggsy remembered and going slowly to give the boy a chance to adjust if something did trigger his memory. It wouldn’t do to suddenly shock back all of his memories with a poorly-chosen word. “Soon after we…parted…he transferred briefly to field work. He was on a mission when a target hit him.”

Eggsy’s brow furrowed in a frown; he seemed tense, pushing himself up as best he could. “Did you get him?” he asked, and Harry could see that he was worried, that he genuinely hoped Kingsman had gotten the guy responsible, but Harry could see part of him holding back too. Part of him afraid to ask too many questions, afraid of what he would find.

He, too, was picking his words carefully, even if he didn’t realize it.

“We got him,” Harry said gently, and his chest hurt. The ache in his heart pulled at his fractured ribs, making them throb, and pain spread across his side.

At that, Eggsy relaxed back, retreated. “Good,” he said. Back to safety, the matter settled. Confirmed that it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought, confirmed that the nagging thought in the back of his mind, the subtle memory and feeling that he’d had something to do with it, quieted for now.

“Eggsy,” Merlin said quietly. “What do you remember?”

Eggsy swallowed again, his hands tightening around the armrests of his chair until his knuckles whitened and his gaze darting anxiously around. “I…I don’t…about what, exactly? What do you want to know?” His breath hitched, and Harry saw the slight increase of his heartrate on the monitor. “You mean about…before I got here. This time, I mean. Before I got to Medical today – yesterday.” He frowned. “Or two days ago. I don’t know.”

He was confused, the hole in his memory throwing him off. (Who wouldn’t it throw off, Harry thought.) But he was trying to hide it as best he could – no doubt something he’d learned from his time with Ross. No doubt he saw confusion as weakness, and considering what he’d been forced to do, it was no wonder if he’d learned that it was better to hide weakness.

He was almost like a child, now, Harry thought. So much thrown on his shoulders and no way to know how to handle it, so he shut down. And suddenly, Harry realized just how strong the boy had seemed before Ross, and how strong he still had to be to have gone through what he did and survived to come out the other end.

“Start from the beginning,” Harry said gently. “Whatever you can. I know it’s difficult to talk about, but the only way we can get close to getting the person responsible is with your help.”

Eggsy’s breaths quickened; Harry could see it in the way his chest rose and fell. “Do I have to?”

“It would help us,” Merlin said. “As Harry said, whatever you can.”

Eggsy took a few quick, shallow breaths; an attempt at calming himself down. He tried a few times to speak, his throat working and his lips struggling to form words, but no sound came out.

Beside him, Harry saw Merlin give him a worried look.

“I don’t remember anything,” Eggsy said finally, and he sounded confused and scared. “I – I can’t – I’m sorry, I don’t…”

Harry felt his chest clench. He knew what this was; he’d seen it before. He’d even experienced it himself, for a little bit after Kentucky. He knew the terror of thinking back and realizing an entire hour, an entire day, was gone from his life, that he didn’t remember anything. He knew the confusion of knowing there was a gaping hole in his memory and that something terrible must have happened because everyone else was treating him delicately, asking him if he remembered, looking worried when he didn’t. Except with Eggsy it was months, perhaps even years, that he didn’t seem to remember. That he could feel locked away behind a door he didn’t have the key to, nor the strength to break down.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Merlin said quietly, after a few moments had passed. “Perhaps it’ll help bring up some memories, make things easier for you. Is that alright?”

Eggsy didn’t answer. He was staring blankly at the wall past Merlin’s right ear.

Merlin glanced at Harry, and Harry gave him a single nod. _Try it, but go easy._

“Do you remember a man named Patrick Weber?” Merlin asked.

Eggsy’s gaze flashed briefly to Merlin’s face, and then he was staring at the wall again. “I…yes,” he said uncertainly. “I think so.”

“You think so?”

“Yes. But I…I don’t…” He trailed off, looking almost helplessly at Harry.

He remembered, Harry thought, or at least he knew it was something that he should remember. He knew he should know the name, that he should know the man, but the memories associated with it ( _the knife against Eggsy’s neck_ ) were terrible enough that he couldn’t bring himself to think about it long enough to. Every mention of a triggering name, a triggering event, would bring back a barrage of memories that he didn’t know how to handle, that he couldn’t sort through, and his mind would block them out to avoid having to deal with it and be overwhelmed by it.

“It’s alright. What about Jean Loussac?” Merlin asked.

A pause. “Yes,” Eggsy said, anxiously. His gaze was fixed on the wall. “But I still don’t…I can’t…”

A glance at Harry. “Andy Atkins?”

Harry saw Eggsy’s hands tighten on the armrests again, saw the way his heartrate and breathing spiked suddenly. His eyes were wide, now, unfocused, lost. Dissociated, to get away from the pain, the fear.

Harry hurt, to watch him.

“What do you remember?” Merlin asked quietly.

Eggsy started hyperventilating.

“Eggsy,” Harry said, gently enough to not scare him, sharply enough to call his attention away from the wall and the fear and the memories he didn’t understand and was too afraid to think too much about. The boy’s eyes focused for a moment, his gaze flashing to Harry’s face. “Eggsy, is it alright to touch you?”

A long moment, and then a single, short nod.

So Harry reached out to grasp Eggsy’s hand in his own; the boy’s fingers curled around his hand, and Harry could feel him trembling. “Shh, love, take it easy now,” Harry murmured. “You’re alright. Deep breaths in, alright? With me, now. In for a few seconds – that’s it, Eggsy. Now slowly out. Now again, deep breath in – a little slower than that, love, alright? That’s it. You’re doing wonderfully.” He gave the boy’s hand a squeeze, and he felt the boy squeeze his hand in return. Grounding himself. It took a few minutes, a few times starting over when he lost control again, but gradually he managed to calm himself down.

Merlin glanced at Harry. “Outside, please.”

Harry nodded once, curtly.

“Retrograde amnesia,” Merlin said, once Eggsy was calm again and Harry had followed Merlin out into the hall and closed the door behind them. “It’s a common side effect of having gone through a trauma, and I’m not surprised that it manifested today, after his mind has had the opportunity to realize that he is out of whatever situation he was in.”

“A survival mechanism,” Harry said. “I know. He managed to hold it together for the past two years, and as soon as he gets here where he’s safe and doesn’t have to think about it anymore, he shuts down to protect himself.” He looked at Merlin warily. “What does this mean?”

Merlin sighed, passing a hand over his face. “It means that…it means I believe there is something there when you say he was manipulated into doing everything that he did. This reaction arises out of the helplessness of a traumatic event, not out of something that someone does of their own free will – well, not something that someone does of their own free will and isn’t bothered by. Unfortunately, though, that doesn’t help us unless we can get him to remember.”

Harry clenched his jaw and looked away.

“He _can_ remember,” Merlin said. “It’s still in there somewhere, even if his conscious mind can’t access it right now, and we need that information. It could save us weeks, _months_ , on getting more info, and the faster he gives it to us the fewer the chances that Ross has already taken precautions against us, changed things around, or even relocated entirely.”

“He might be able to remember, but he doesn’t want to,” Harry said, and he was back in Kentucky again, waking up in Statesman’s medical center the day after he was shot, unable to remember anything for the next few days despite the fact that scans showed no physical damage to his brain whatsoever – well, none that should have impacted his memory that drastically.

The concussion had been a different problem to deal with.

 _Pain_. It sparked across the left side of his head, the burning of the bullet dragging him back to the twenty-first of June, two years ago, back to the suffocating Kentucky heat.

No. Grounding. Focus on the feeling of his feet on the ground, the feeling of his breaths, the sight of Merlin in front of him and the everyday sounds of Medical around them.

The whole process took only a few seconds.

“He knows there’s something there, but he can’t force himself to think about it,” Harry said, and he could see the flash of concern in Merlin’s gaze, knew that the other man knew what had just happened, but Merlin didn’t comment. “He knows that something terrible happened during the last two years, and he might even know what it is, but anytime he gets close to it, his mind pushes him away.”

 _Fifty-two people_.

No. He was over that trauma. He’d processed it, he’d worked through it. It shouldn’t be troubling him anymore.

And yet, he still remembered every single one of their faces.

_Kill me kill me kill me –_

“It’ll come back,” Merlin said softly. “Whether he wants it to or not. Intrusive thoughts, nightmares, flashbacks, unpredictable triggers…you know this, Harry.” He paused, and there were a few moments of silence. “It would be better for him in the long run for someone to try and bring it out of him in a controlled setting instead of letting him go on repressing it. Of course, ideally, we’d wait for him to be ready first, and we’d wait for him to be the one to bring it up, but we don’t have that kind of time. The most we can afford to do right now is to be kind.”

Harry knew, as always, that Merlin had a point. The best way to deal with such kind of things was with a licensed and qualified psychologist who would be able to handle whatever the boy wanted to talk about whenever he wanted to talk about it, or who would be able to gently prod him in that direction and help him talk through the past two years. And Kingsman certainly had access to such people. But the fate of innocent lives rested on Eggsy’s silence right now. The longer they waited, the more lives might be lost.

But at the same time…

“Even if he knows what it is that he went through, even if he remembers all of the things that could help us find Ross and take him down, there’s no guarantee that he’ll actually be able to talk about it. Especially after what he went through, it’s going to be difficult to say it out loud, and he’s almost definitely been conditioned to – or at least learned to – internalize everything. I doubt Ross encouraged therapy,” Harry said wryly. “We might be able to get him to remember, but getting him to speak is an entirely different thing.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Merlin said gently, and Harry could see that he didn’t like it either. But Kingsman weren’t the world’s best spy organization for no reason, they hadn’t stopped the most major attempts at world domination and mass murder than anyone else by accident.

 _The greater good_.

Of course, Kingsman valued the life of every individual and did its best to keep innocent people out of the line of fire, but there was something to be said about the morality of saving only one life at the expense of multiple others. Kingsman had taken up the responsibility of that, making the difficult call to hurt a few people – innocent or not – or let them die if absolutely necessary, if it meant that more people would be saved in the long run. They lived by the rule to only condone the risking of a life to save another, and Harry had proudly upheld that idea of the greater good for the past three decades he’d spent in Kingsman’s service, and he’d thought he’d spend the rest of his life upholding it.

But now that Eggsy was involved, the words turned to poison on his tongue.

Poison.

_Primed, and lethal._

And yet, he couldn’t deny that Ross had already killed hundreds of people – even if not under his direction specifically, then at least under the direction of the network he was part of and had taken over – and he was showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. He couldn’t be allowed to kill again, not while Kingsman was able to do something about it.

“I don’t like the idea of pushing it. But I know we can’t just sit around,” Harry added reluctantly, as Merlin opened his mouth to protest. “There are a few things that we know happened on his end. Perhaps if we start with those…if we’re careful, we could bring some of those memories to the surface. Perhaps we can do it in a way that won’t hurt him more than he’s been hurt already. If we ask him simple questions, things that he can answer with only a few words, it’ll be easier on him, and he’ll likely be better equipped to be able to deal with it.”

He didn’t like it – no, he hated it. He hated the idea of pushing the boy’s mind beyond what he was ready for; he knew all about trauma and repression, and he knew that while repressing everything wasn’t always the best way to handle things, sometimes it was necessary. Sometimes it was necessary to wait until the mind was naturally ready to process what it had gone through.

He had a feeling this was one of those times, and pushing the boy beyond his limits could do more harm than good.

But more lives were at stake here than just Eggsy’s.

Eggsy was calmer by the time they re-entered the room, but anxiety still thrummed through his body. He shrank back slightly as they sat down in front of him again, looking nervously at Harry, his hands fidgeting atop the covers.

“We want to ask you about a few things that have happened,” Harry said quietly. “I know it’s difficult, believe me. But we know, and we think you know too, that the memories are there, even if it’s hard for you to make yourself remember them.”

Eggsy swallowed, his eyes darting around the room, not focusing on anything. “Why?” he whispered.

“We know you worked for an organization,” Harry said. “We know that what you did was not your fault, and that there were…external circumstances…that limited your options. Kingsman wants to find this organization and stop them before they can hurt anyone else.”

“Will it…will it help you, if I talk?” Eggsy asked, and his voice was small, afraid.

“Yes,” Harry said.

Eggs took a few deep, shaky breaths, and then he spoke. “I can’t promise anythin’, but I’ll try.”

“We’ll start from the mission,” Merlin said quietly. Harry saw how Eggsy flinched back at the word ‘mission,’ saw something unreadable cross his face, as if the word had triggered something. “You were assigned the mission with Patrick Weber, Andy Atkins, and Jean Loussac. Weber, Atkins, and Loussac lived in a single house on Scarsdale Villas in Kensington. The house was white.” He paused, watching Eggsy carefully, going slow to avoid overwhelming him.

Eggsy looked nervous, more on edge than he was before, but he was still in control, so Merlin continued. “On Wednesday, June 22, you were in a call with them when Weber mentioned that he’d been to the grocery shop. This was after he mentioned visiting the pub and meeting a man named Jon who claimed to have lived there fifteen years ago. Do you remember that?”

Eggsy looked tense. “I…the names…the people and the address…I don’t know, it seems…” He blinked rapidly a few times, and he was staring hard at the wall again. “It might have happened, I don’t know.”

“Try to remember,” Merlin said gently. “Try and recall any part of that conversation, any details of that night at all or any related memories that may come up. Try and remember if you were in the room with them, or if you were located somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else,” Eggsy said, and then frowned. “Or – I don’t know. I don’t remember ever being around people, I think that I would have remembered if I’d…” He trailed off.

“Is it possible that it was something you always did, for whatever reason?” Merlin asked. “Were you told not to physically interact with Weber, Atkins, or Loussac, or was that a decision you made for yourself?”

Eggsy swallowed nervously, his flickering gaze betraying his agitation. Part of it was frustration that he didn’t remember, and part of it was fear of thinking too much and remembering. Harry knew how shitty that conflict felt. “I don’t know,” Eggsy said, after a long pause.

Merlin glanced at Harry. They wouldn’t get anything else out of him about that event; if they wanted to know if he was communicating with Ross, if he’d been given specific orders, if he’d been instructed to set up camp in a different location than the other agents and, if so, where that was, they’d need to find another way to do it.

“July 6,” Harry said. “You were at a pastry shop. Trevi’s. Tiramisu. It was unusually warm, even for July. You walked out of the shop at around ten in the morning, turned right onto the street, and then turned right again at the corner. Do you remember that?”

“I…yes,” Eggsy said, slightly uncertainly. “I do remember somethin’ like that, I think.” He swallowed, rubbing his palms almost unconsciously against the sheets draped over his legs.

“Where were you headed?”

“Safehouse,” Eggsy said, almost automatically.

“Was it the one on Scarsdale Villas?”

“Yes – no. I don’t…no, it wasn’t.”

“Do you remember where it was?” Harry asked gently.

Eggsy’s breaths sharpened, and he shook his head. His eyes were wide, unfocused.

“Do you remember anything about it? Anything at all, even if it doesn’t pertain to location?”

Eggsy shook his head again. “My mind is blank after that,” he said, and his voice was barely audible. “I only remember all this ‘cause you’re tellin’ me, and it’s…it’s bringin’ it back. Or maybe I’m just makin’ it up as I hear it and convincin’ myself that what I see actually happened, I can’t tell. But on my own, I…I don’t remember, it’s like a blank wall that I keep runnin’ into where all those memories should be, but I don’t…oh God, I don’t remember, I can’t believe I don’t remember…”

He was panicking, the fear of having lost two years’ worth of memories dragging him away. Harry knew that feeling, too; it had overwhelmed him his first few days at Statesman, thinking that if he had forgotten something that had happened so recently, forgotten something that was so pivotal in his life and that would leave such a large impact, how could he be expected to remember the little things? How could he be expected to remember missions with fellow knights, new year’s celebrations with Merlin? Or his family, the names of parents long since gone, even his own self?

But he’d ground himself, always. He’d pull himself back to rational thought, remind himself that he still remembered all of that, and that paranoia and hypervigilance and anxiety were all symptoms of PTSD, all normal things to be expected after having gone through a trauma. And one day, suddenly, he’d remembered everything again.

“It’s alright, Eggsy,” Harry said, as soothingly as he could. “You’re here, Eggsy, stay focused on that. You’re in your recovery room in the medical center of Kingsman HQ. Yes?”

Eggsy’s gaze flashed to his face, the green bright and brilliant in his eyes.

“Your reaction is natural, and to be expected,” Harry said. “It’s your body’s natural defense mechanism, you’re not going to forget everything. It’s just time that your mind is taking to process things.”

“It was bad, wasn’t it?” Eggsy asked, and his voice was barely audible.

Harry hesitated, looking over at Merlin.

“Tell me, Harry,” Eggsy said, and Harry could hear the note of pleading behind his words. “You can’t hurt me more by tellin’ me the truth than by lyin’ to me.”

_You’re wrong. Sometimes, as clichéd as it sounds, ignorance truly is bliss._

But if the boy wanted to know, he had a right to know.

“You experienced many things that no one should ever have to experience,” Harry said, once again choosing his words carefully. Telling the truth, but as gently as he could, with as much explanation as he could, reassuring the boy that he was safe and that what he was experiencing was normal. “You’re showing classic signs of a post-traumatic reaction, and you’re right to think that it’s happening because what you went through was, in your words, bad. It’s going to take time to process through all of it. It might be a long time before you even start feeling ready.”

 _Kill me_ , the boy pleaded in his mind.

Harry’s breath lodged in his throat, and he clenched his fists, dug his nails into his palm, letting the pain keep him grounded here. _Eggsy’s safe._

“But we ain’t got that time, do we?” Eggsy said, and Harry saw pain flicker across his face. He didn’t seem to have noticed Harry’s reaction.

“No,” Harry murmured, when he could speak. “No, we don’t. I’m sorry.”

Eggsy looked away, his gaze once again fixing on the wall behind Merlin’s right ear, his hands once again fisting in the sheets. “No promises,” he said again. “But I’ll do my best.”

“Are you ready to keep going now?”

Eggsy swallowed a few times, his hands clenching and then relaxing rapidly; tendons stood out in his forearms. Finally, he nodded, once, faintly. “I’m ready.”

 _But am I?_ Harry thought.

Nails bit his palm again. He had to be ready.

“You had a tracker in your neck and a scanner in your eye when you got here,” Harry said, and resolutely did not think about the bloody mess that Eggsy’s body had been, about the too-long surgery that it had taken to save him. “Does that sound familiar at all?”

“A tracker?”

Harry could hear the panic rising up again. “You refused to speak until I had told you the surgeons had removed it and that it had been destroyed,” he said. “You must have communicated with Ross in some way during your mission, did the tracker have anything to do with it? Or the scanner?”

At the mention of the name Ross, Eggsy flinched back visibly, his anxiety suddenly much more visible than it had been before. “He could find me,” he whispered, and he was curling in on himself now, shifting into the back corner of his hospital bed. “Anywhere I was, whatever I was doing, he could hear me, and he could follow me. He’d hurt them,” Eggsy said, and his face was pale, his hands trembling over the covers. He was speaking, but there was something in his expression that made Harry think his mind wasn’t really there, and Harry wasn’t sure the boy knew what he was saying.

“Hurt who?” Merlin asked gently.

“Mum,” Eggsy said. Veins were standing out in his arms with the force of his grip, with the strength he was clenching his hands. “Mum and Daisy. He’d hurt them, and I couldn’t do anythin’ about it.” He’d started to hyperventilate, his hands drawing up around his chest.

“Hurt them how?” Merlin asked.

“I don’t know,” Eggsy bit out, and he was shaking. “He’d do anythin’ if it got ‘im what he wanted. He probably had snipers on them just like he had snipers on every one of his assets. He could ask me to do anythin’ and as long as he had Mum and Daisy I would’ve – I would’ve –” He broke off, and he was hyperventilating again, drawing his knees up, closing in on himself.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Harry murmured. He reached forward to grasp the boy’s hand, deliberately making his movements slow and predictable so as to avoid startling him and making things worse. “Eggsy, focus on my voice, alright? You’re safe. Deep breath in, there we go. Slowly.”

Eggsy stared at him, eyes wild, and for the first few moments Harry wasn’t sure that he was mentally present enough to hear what he was saying, much less understand him and do as Harry asked, but then Harry could feel him latching on to his voice, following his words, doing as he was told. His breaths slowed, his heartrate returned to normal, and the monitor stopped beeping. His mind came back to them, to the present.

“That’s it,” Harry said quietly.

Eggsy’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I…what did I say?” he asked, and his voice was small.

 _Dissociation_ , Harry thought. Another common symptom of trauma.

“You told us about your family,” Harry told him, and he could see panic flash briefly through the boy’s eyes again at his words. He kept his voice as calm as he could, trying to keep Eggsy grounded here. Trying to keep himself grounded here too, as the sound of the boy’s cries of pain and the feeling of the boy’s blood rushed to the front of his mind again. “You told us about how Ross used them against you. Do you remember any of that?”

“No.” Eggsy swallowed and shook his head. “I’m scared, Harry,” he said, and there was a tremor in his voice. “I…I think back and I can’t make myself think about any of it, it’s like there’s somethin’ always pushin’ me back and I know…I know it’s there, I know that if I forced myself to, I could remember it, but I just can’t…I can’t force myself to think about it long enough. All of these things you’ve been askin’ me, all these things that you want me to remember…I’ve got to be able to think about them to know if I actually remember them, yeah? But I…I can’t even do that.”

“That’s natural,” Harry said. “It’s your mind’s way of dealing with things.” Something they’d both do well to remember.

Eggsy swallowed again. His hands had started fidgeting, as if the feeling of clenching and unclenching his fists, of digging his nails into his palm, helped him focus on the here and now, stopped him from getting overwhelmed by his thoughts and emotions.

“Eggsy,” Merlin said softly. “Do you remember anything about a video?”

The video wasn’t filmed in either of the locations he or Roxy had gone to. Merlin was trying to find Ross’s headquarters, Harry realized, and he immediately felt stupid for not having thought of that earlier. He’d been too focused on the boy, to absorbed in his own feelings and worry to really consider what needed to be done.

_I love him._

It was no wonder he hadn’t thought of it.

If he’d been anyone else, he would’ve told himself that he couldn’t blame himself. He’d just seen the boy he loved more than anything else in the world almost die in front of him, while he sat by and could do nothing. But he wasn’t anyone else. No matter what he felt for Eggsy, he was still a Kingsman, and the mission came first.

“A video?” Eggsy asked, and he sounded confused, and troubled at his confusion.

“About three minutes long,” Merlin said cautiously, and Harry once again saw the knife against the boy’s throat, heard his screams split the air, ripping through the silence. It was all he could do not to wince, and even then, he felt his shoulders tighten with tension. “It was in an empty room with bare concrete walls, about ten meters on each side. There were two people in the room; you, and Patrick Weber.”

Eggsy flinched again.

“What do you remember?” Merlin asked. Still cautious; he knew any description of the video’s contents would be difficult for Harry to hear too, and could bring up too many memories too quickly for Eggsy. Distantly, Harry wondered if Merlin had been as affected by the video as he had.

“Anything,” Merlin continued, calmly, and Harry concluded that if he _had_ been as affected as Harry had, he was certainly better at hiding it. Perhaps that had to do with the fact that he had to supervise missions, Harry thought. He had to stay calm and composed at all times, no matter what he felt. The success of a mission could depend on how well the handler handled things.

Perhaps that was why it was so easy for him to separate emotion from his work.

Merlin was a bloody good spy, Harry thought.

“If you have a location, a date, a time, or anything that Weber said while he was in there, it could help us,” Merlin said. “Anything he might have been asking of you, or anything that you might remember about Ross.”

“The video,” Eggsy said. His eyes were wide now, unfocused, staring.

Merlin glanced at Harry. Eggsy was remembering something, Harry could see, the bits and pieces of memory coming together, and then the monitors started beeping again with the sudden shift in his vitals.

“Eggsy,” Eggsy said, and then Harry knew his mind wasn’t with them anymore. He was back wherever the memory had taken him, having flashbacks that he probably wouldn’t even remember when they were over. “My name is Eggsy. No!” He flinched away violently, even though neither Harry nor Merlin had moved, bringing his hands up to cover his face, knees drawing up until he was curled in on himself.

Merlin cast Harry a quick glance; his brown was furrowed in a frown of confusion.

“Don’t – no!” Eggsy cried out, holding his hands out in front of him as if to block a blow, shrinking in on himself, and Harry realized with a sickening twist in his gut that he was watching Eggsy remember being tortured. A look at Merlin confirmed that he’d come to the same conclusion.

Eggsy was hyperventilating now, his chest heaving with quick, shallow breaths.

“What is Weber doing?” Merlin asked, and his voice was still somehow, infuriatingly, calm.

Harry tried not to think, tried not to see the way Weber’s knife cut neat, bloody lines into the boy’s belly, the way a whip shredded his back, but the boy was in front of him and flinching away – even if it was from something Harry couldn’t see – and he couldn’t help the anger, the pain, the feeling of _helplessness_ , that welled up in him.

 _August 14, 2016. Kingsman headquarters. Medical center. Recovery room. Eggsy is here, in front of me._ He repeated it over and over in his mind, keeping himself grounded, keeping his mind here instead of allowing it to be swept back up to just a few days ago when he’d seen the video. Even if the video had to have been fake – or was it? Did Eggsy fake his way through it, or was it something that Ross really had done to him sometime in the past two years, getting him to become nothing more than a weapon?

_August 14, 2016. Kingsman headquarters. Medical center. Recovery room. Eggsy is here, in front of me._

Eggsy had been shot.

_Kill me kill me kill me –_

_August 14, 2016. Kingsman headquarters. Medical center._

“Eggsy,” Merlin said, and Harry could hear the faintest thread of worry in his voice. Merlin cared; Harry knew he did. Harry knew how much Merlin had loved the boy, before, and how much Merlin still cared about him now, even though Eggsy had shot him, even if Merlin didn’t show it. “Eggsy, can you hear me?”

“My name is Eggsy Unwin,” Eggsy said, and he said it over and over again, curled in the corner of his hospital bed, and Harry felt like watching this go on for much longer was going to kill him.

“Alright, that’s enough,” he said sharply, his voice pulling himself out of his own whirlwind of thoughts. “I can’t do this to him. Eggsy,” he said gently, and then again a little louder when the boy didn’t seem to have heard him. “Eggsy, it’s me. Harry. You’re alright. Look at me, okay?”

“A597-3,” Eggsy said, and Harry stiffened. A code; it must be. Or an identity, a serial number.

“ _Look at me_ ,” Harry said again, and he dared to reach out and grasp Eggsy’s wrists, giving them a gentle squeeze, letting his touch be something else to pull Eggsy back to the present. The boy jerked at his touch, and Harry immediately realized his mistake; things around Eggsy would be incorporated into his flashback, touch included. It was likely that as far as Eggsy knew right now, Harry was Weber, sent to hurt him.

But when he released the boy’s wrists, pulling back, Eggsy caught his hands.

Harry’s breath caught in his throat. Eggsy was still there; he was still with them. He hadn’t completely dissociated, as Harry had seen torture victims do when confronted with memories of what they had gone through.

And Eggsy wanted him there with him now.

Harry put his hands gently back around Eggsy’s wrists, feeling the subtle shift of tendon under his palms as Eggsy’s fists clenched and relaxed, over and over again. “Look at me, love,” Harry said. “I’m here. You’re in the medical center of Kingsman’s headquarters. You’re _Eggsy_.”

He could see Eggsy fighting, coming back to him and then being pulled back. He couldn’t control the memories, Harry knew, and that was why his mind had repressed them. They overwhelmed him so easily, engulfed him so his emotions spun out of his control. It was no wonder his mind had tried to protect him by making him forget, by putting up a wall around the entire past two years of his life.

But Eggsy was strong. He was stronger than anyone Harry had ever known; Harry knew this. And even now, when he’d gone through something more terrible than anything anyone should have to experience – more terrible than anything most of Kingsman’s current agents had ever experienced, Harry thought – even now, when he was being overwhelmed by memories of those terrible things which he couldn’t control, there was still a part of him that hung on.

He was so, so strong, and Harry loved him for it, and it burned him.

“Eggsy, love, look at me,” Harry said, and he let his voice be something calming, something consistent, that Eggsy could rely on. “Listen to me, alright? You’re in Kingsman headquarters, and you’re safe. You started having a flashback when we were asking you questions. It’s a normal response to trauma, and I know how terrifying it is, but it’s not real, and you can pull through it. You’re here with me, and you’re alright.”

“Give him something to focus on,” Merlin murmured.

Right. Grounding. Let Eggsy be an active agent in the process.

“I want you to pick something to focus on, alright? Something physical here, in this room, that you can study and pick out all of the details of. Can you do that?”

After a long moment, Eggsy’s gaze shifted down to his hands, his wrists with Harry’s fingers around them.

“I want you to look at them,” Harry said, and he kept his voice soft, gentle. A constant sound. Calming. (He needed it just as much as the boy did.) “I want you to try and memorize them. Look at all of the lines and wrinkles, all of the veins and tendons that you see, the color of skin. Look at the way the light falls, and how it’s slightly different over every knuckle. I want you to remember how your wrist feels with my hands around them. Pay attention to the pressure, if my hands are warm or cold. Alright? You’re doing wonderfully, love.”

He could see the way Eggsy’s breaths calmed, the way the wild light dimmed in his eyes, the way expression returned to his previously blank face.

There was pain, in his expression.

“I can’t do this,” Eggsy whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Harry glanced at Merlin. The other man’s expression was like stone.

“We’ll try again tomorrow,” Harry said, turning back to face Eggsy, and Eggsy flinched back at his words, drew away from him. “We’ll see how you feel,” Harry added quickly. “And if you feel ready to try, we’ll try. If you don’t, then we won’t force you. Is that alright?”

“I…think so,” Eggsy said uncertainly. He was still curled away from Harry, his hands pulled out of Harry’s grasp, and it hurt Harry to know that he’d hurt Eggsy.

But Kingsman didn’t have any other choice. Not unless they managed to find one of Ross’s other agents, which at this point was unlikely, and which at this point was also extremely risky. Not unless Ross volunteered that information himself, which was probably safe to say would never happen.

No, they didn’t have any other choice.

 

 

 

Eggsy tried, Harry knew he did. Harry knew he was frustrated and confused and scared and impatient, but after the first two days it got even worse, and he’d seem fine, but as soon as he and Merlin came into the room and asked if he was ready, his expression would go blank, and he’d close off, and nothing would bring him out of his shell of silence except for a change of subject and the passage of time. It was like a switch would flip inside his mind and there was nothing that Harry or Merlin or Roxy – because they did ask her to try, too – could do except hit reset and try again tomorrow.

Harry tried to spend time with the boy, partly because he didn’t want Eggsy to feel alone and abandoned as he must have felt for the past two years, partly because he didn’t want Eggsy to be pulled back into a flashback or a nightmare and have no one there for him. But it was also partly because he was selfish, and he couldn’t bear the thought of every new memory Eggsy had associated with him being the traumatizing and stressful experience of trying to remember something he’d much rather forget.

Harry thought Eggsy appreciated it, Harry coming to see him. The boy’s expression would lighten a bit when Harry came into the room, and he’d smile, and it made Harry feel like Eggsy was genuinely happy to see him, despite what Harry was putting him through.

There were times, when Eggsy looked up at him with a glimmer in the brilliant green of his eyes and a white flash of a smile on his face, that Harry would feel like things were going to be okay again.

 _It’s alright, love_.

There were times when Harry wondered desperately if the boy did, somehow, miraculously, still love him, or if it was just something that had slipped out from between dying lips to make him feel better.

In terms of physical improvement, Eggsy was taking tremendous steps. He was still confined to Medical for now; the nurses were worried about him extending himself too much and being too far away for help to arrive in time, and the boy didn’t seem interested in revisiting old haunts around the building anyway. But he walked around the room, up and down the hall if it wasn’t too crowded, and as each day passed, he got stronger.

He just still couldn’t think about the entirety of the past two years. Any mention of it would send him into a dissociative state, and any further questioning would only be met with a stony silence – a silence that, Harry thought, wasn’t entirely of his own volition. Harry knew how difficult it was to talk about things like what Eggsy had gone through, and how sometimes there seemed to be a physical barrier between the thoughts and the actual forming of the words, as if even if the boy had wanted to speak he’d been unable to make his body cooperate.

Writing – well, typing – didn’t work either. They’d try leaving him alone in the room to give him some privacy, but watching through the monitors that Medical had on all of their recovery rooms Harry could see him begin to type something out, his fingers moving slowly across the keyboard, and then he’d have to stop. Even when they suggested closing his eyes as he typed so that he wouldn’t have to see everything he’d described written out in front of him, he never got very far before needing a break.

They got a few words out of him. Things like _knife. Burning. Kensington._ Nothing they didn’t already know, and everything seemed to have to do with how Weber had tortured him – under Ross’s orders, presumably, but it was still Weber doing the harm – or things about the last mission that Kingsman already knew about; the location, having to shoot Atkins, the fact that he had to do what he was ordered to do if he wanted to keep his family safe.

The first three days of that, it was all the same. Slightly different words, maybe some phrases that were shifted around, but all the same information that Kingsman already knew.

And then, on the fourth day, two more names.

_Ross Merkel._

_Chamonix._

 

 

 

“Well, ‘Ross Merkel’ doesn’t help us,” Merlin said, as he and Harry sat in Merlin’s office, and he sounded frustrated but not surprised. “It’s a common enough name; I’ve narrowed it down to several individuals who it might be, but that’s not even taking into account the fact that ‘Ross Merkel’ may not even be his real name. In that case, assuming he’s stealing the name, we’d have to expand our search to include anyone named Ross Merkel in _history_ , and then we’d have to consider any connections some random person we know nothing about might have with that certain Ross Merkel which made him choose that name in particular, and then we’d have to find said random person.”

“And this is also assuming he didn’t just choose it arbitrarily,” Harry grumbled.

“Exactly. So I think it’s safe to conclude that ‘Ross Merkel’ will give us nothing, at least not until we have more information to compare.” Merlin tapped on his clipboard. “Now, on the other hand, Chamonix might be useful. It’s something that holds some meaning for Eggsy, otherwise he wouldn’t have written it down. I’m guessing that it’s either Ross’s headquarters, the place he was held when he was tortured – which could also be the same place as Ross’s headquarters – or a place where he was sent on a particularly important or significant mission. Now, I’ve looked at all of the records of kills that we have located near Chamonix, and there were only three that fit the pattern of Garlon but all of them happened before Eggsy was born and they were all several miles away – far enough that the mission location wouldn’t technically be Chamonix anymore.”

“So it’s likely one of Ross’s locations,” Harry said. “Or at least a place that we could go to find something out that would lead us to one of Ross’s locations.”

Merlin nodded. “We’re going to need more detail on that; Chamonix isn’t particularly big, and we’ve located safehouses in bigger and more populated areas, but it would be enormously helpful if we had a little bit more to go on. Something that could at least point us in the right direction, especially because it’s located in the Alps. Aerial surveying is much less practical and far less effective in such extensive mountains due to the terrain and the possibility for mountainside bunkers that are located under overhangs that a drone wouldn’t be able to see through. Ross probably knew this when he planned this whole thing out.”

There was a pause.

“You’re asking me to get it out of him,” Harry said, after a while.

Merlin was still tapping on his clipboard, but he paused as Harry spoke. “He trusts you,” he said quietly. “Much more than he trusts me. And he cares for you more than he cares for me.”

“You’re asking me to use that,” Harry said.

_One more time when Eggsy’s love would be used against him._

“I’m not asking you to use _him_ ,” Merlin said. “But I cannot deny that we need more intel. _You_ can’t deny that, Harry. But the only way we’re going to be able to get that is if someone can reach him. I’m saying that the person who’s most likely to be able to do that is you. However you decide to do it is your choice.”

“We’ve spoken to him already,” Harry said, and he knew that part of him was speaking out of the complete and utter disgust he felt towards using the relationship he’d had with the boy against him, and part of him was speaking out of not wanting to put himself through the pain of thinking about how Ross had hurt the boy, at least not so soon, not before he was ready. But he also knew that what he was saying made sense. “Me talking to him again isn’t going to make any difference. I can see what I can do, but at this point I don’t know if it’s possible for anyone to get anything out of him. He’s simply not ready to deal with the memories, and that’s not something we can rush or force.”

Merlin was silent for a while. Finally, after a long few minutes of tapping at his clipboard, he spoke. “I know. I’ve just sent out two drones. Let’s hope they do a better job than we expect them to, but until then…” He trailed off, looking up at Harry almost beseechingly. “I’m not going to ask you to do anything to hurt him; you know I don’t want that. I know the strain he’s being put under, and I know how traumatizing in itself recalling those memories can be.”

“You know?” Harry interrupted, and his voice was bitter, harsh, almost accusing. Did Merlin not understand? Did he not see that even asking about it, even attempting to broach the subject in any way, could set off a barrage of flashbacks and nightmares that would last for days and set back his recovery for weeks? Did he not see that reliving what he had gone through would be a trauma in and of itself? Did he not see that Harry couldn’t do that to Eggsy? Did he not see that it would be difficult for Harry, too?

“ _You_ know how traumatizing it can be?” Harry demanded, and he laughed humorlessly. “I’ve lived it, Merlin, on the twenty-first of June, every year. I know what it feels like to think about something that terrible – something that I was responsible for. I can still see every single one of their faces, Merlin,” Harry said, and even as he said it he could see that blonde woman in front of him, her head jerking back as his bullet tore through her skull, her body crumpling lifelessly to the ground. “I can feel their blood on my hands. I can smell it in the air. I still feel the guilt and fear of knowing what I was doing, what I was capable of, and knowing that I _wanted_ to do it, whether that was under my control or not – and that was part of it. Being so out of control. And after – I can feel myself getting shot, over and over again. And yet you still ask me to put him through the same thing when he’s already struggling enough as it is. Don’t talk to me about shit you don’t know.”

Merlin was quiet for a long time; Harry stood in front of him, his heart pounding and the left side of his head throbbing and his ribs burning, as flashes of memory pulled his mind back to two years ago in a church in Kentucky. He flinched a bit, each time, when he saw someone’s head snap backwards, when he saw blood spurting from a pale, delicate neck, when he felt bone crunch beneath his hands.

And then, finally, Merlin spoke. “Have you forgotten that I saw it too?” he asked, devastatingly quiet, and there was a sort of deep hurt in his voice that drove the breath from Harry’s lungs, made Harry feel terrible for what he’d just said.

“Merlin, I…”

“Have you forgotten that I saw you shot? That I saw you completely out of control? That _terrified_ me, Harry, to see what you were up against. To see that even you were helpless – Kingsman’s best agent. And then you walked out of that church, and believe me, Harry, I’d never harbored any illusions to any of our safety, and I’d never thought that living another day was guaranteed for any of us, but I thought you were in the clear, then, even when Valentine was standing there pointing a gun at you. I thought…I’d seen so many people die, Harry, but never you. I never thought I’d see you die. You stood there staring death in the face and I thought, ‘Harry’s smart. He’s too smart to get killed now, too good at what he does.’ But you _weren’t_.

“So I heard it too, Harry. I saw the blood across my screen – _your_ blood – and you fell back, and then all I could see was blue. And I called you. I _begged_ you, Harry, not to be dead, because you’re my best friend. You’re my fucking best friend, Harry, and as far as I knew, you had just been killed right in front of me. And it took four days for me to find out that you were alive. Four days for you to wake up long enough to contact me, four days for you to remember what had happened and figure out that I probably thought you were dead. I _grieved_ for you, Harry, for those four days. I fucking fell apart. So don’t you _dare_ tell me I don’t know what I’m dealing with.”

Harry couldn’t speak. Merlin’s eyes were glistening, and there had been a tremor to his voice that Harry had never heard before. Even now, Harry could see that his hands were shaking.

He’d been stupid, and he’d been selfish and insensitive and self-absorbed, to think that Merlin hadn’t been affected by all of the things he’d seen.

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered.

Merlin didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry,” Harry repeated. “I should’ve realized…I never should’ve said…” He broke off, inhaling deeply through his nose and trying not to think too hard about what he had put Merlin through. “It was insensitive,” Harry said finally. “It was selfish and thoughtless for me to think that you wouldn’t have been affected by anything. It was…it was wrong,” he said. “And you have my deepest apologies for not checking in on you sooner, for not even having considered how you might have been affected.”

“It’s nothing compared to what you or Eggsy went through,” Merlin said quietly. “Of course, just witnessing something like that through a screen is nothing close to actually having been there and experiencing it all personally. But it’s still absolute _shit_ to ever have to think that you just saw your best friend die and that you could’ve done fuck-all about it.”

“Don’t,” Harry murmured, and he leaned forward, touching Merlin’s arm gently. “Don’t say it’s nothing, even compared to…to whatever I or Eggsy had to go through. Suffering isn’t a competition. It shouldn’t even be a comparison.”

Merlin was silent for a while. Finally, he said, “Let’s just make the most out of this situation as we can. If you can get anything out of Eggsy, it would be of enormous help. But if you can’t, I understand.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Harry said.

“Use your judgment,” Merlin said.

It shouldn’t have been his decision to make, fucking with someone else’s mind and trying to bring forth memories that would rather be forgotten.

But they were Kingsman, trying to prevent Ross Merkel from killing again.

They had to try.

 

 

 

Eleven days after Eggsy was brought in, he was cleared to leave from Medical, and he moved into the Kingsman recruit dorms that he’d lived in for a few weeks two years ago. He was able to walk by then, albeit not very far and not for very long, and most times when he was out of bed he had Harry beside him.

Even then, Harry refused to go home. He’d asked Jay to bring JB over to HQ instead of back to Galahad’s house, and the pug now stayed in Harry’s office with Harry. Now that Eggsy could walk around and the tube in his chest was removed and his wounds had closed up, even if only on the surface, JB had been allowed to see him, and Harry thought the pug’s presence helped a bit. When Eggsy got even stronger and could get around without much help and his body could stand some gentle affectionate nosing from a dog, JB stayed in the Kingsman recruit dorms with him.

Sometimes, Harry stayed with Eggsy in the dorms too. Only sometimes, though, only when the day was shit and Eggsy found it particularly hard to deal with. Otherwise, Harry tried to give the boy some space, tried not to overwhelm him.

Eggsy didn’t know that every night, Harry had nightmares about seeing him shot, about hearing him plead for Harry to kill him, about feeling his blood on his hands. Blood that refused to stop flowing. Blood that stuck to him, clinging under his nails, staining his clothes, never letting him forget how close Eggsy had been to death. Eggsy didn’t know that sometimes the nightmares were of Eggsy already dead, his body cold and pale and stiff by the time Harry had gotten to him, and Harry would wake sobbing into his pillow and clutching his sheets to his chest.

Eggsy didn’t know that, other than being near Eggsy himself, JB had been the only thing that had helped Harry through the nightmares and the memories that always came up in the darkness.

But Eggsy didn’t need to know. He needed JB more than Harry did right now.

As for Eggsy’s family, they didn’t know Eggsy was there. Eggsy didn’t want them to; he didn’t explain why, but Harry thought that it probably had something to do with the fact that thinking too much about them would bring too many questions that he couldn’t answer, would bring back too many memories of pain that he didn’t know how to and didn’t want to deal with.

Any mention of anything related to the past two years, really, would do that.

So Harry told his family that Eggsy was away for work and that he would be back soon, it would probably just be best if they waited for him to call on them first since he was busy.

As for Eggsy, Harry didn’t press him. He didn’t bring up the mission or anything about Ross or the past two years, and other than asking if Eggsy wanted them to know he was also in HQ and mentioning that they were doing alright Harry didn’t bring up his family either and how much they had been asking after him, how much they were worrying about him.

Harry didn’t press him, and Eggsy didn’t speak of it.

 

 

 

Twelve days after Eggsy was brought in, Kingsman sent Lancelot and Gawain, under Percival’s direction, back to Garlon’s house in Kensington, in the hopes that they would find something despite the fact that so much time had passed and no doubt Ross had already taken appropriate precautions. They found the property locked and under an alarm system, but Roxy was quite adept at disarming alarms at that point and they were able to gain entry without much trouble.

But, as they expected even if they had hoped differently, they found nothing. Weber and Loussac must have cleaned it out before they’d left on their last trips to the abandoned apartment and warehouse, respectively, knowing that whatever the outcome, it was unlikely that they would be returning to the place. They’d left nothing behind, and the entire house was empty, down to the empty rolls of toilet paper.

Disappointing as it was, Percival refused to simply give it up and mark the mission as fruitlessly completed, and both Lancelot and Gawain seemed to agree with him. The plan was, after finishing surveying Garlon’s house, to look around the area and try and find the safehouse that Eggsy had spoken of. They knew it had to be within a reasonable driving distance – and likely within a reasonable walking distance as well – since Eggsy had been headed there after the pastry shop, and since he’d been present at the warehouse when Kingsman had first tried to capture Atkins.

At the time they had left, twelve days after Eggsy was brought in, it was supposed to have been a one-day mission. It seemed simple enough; Roxy and Jay would head to Garlon’s house, find out whatever they could and potentially bag something for Percival and Merlin to analyze, and head back. But given their lack of success at Garlon’s house and the decision to continue the mission beyond the predicted time, they had to stay in the area longer. For the rest of the mission, then, Roxy and Jay would be staying in another of Kingsman’s houses, near the place in Kensington Gardens that Harry and Roxy had stayed in previously.

 

 

 

Thirteen days after Eggsy was brought in, the house was bombed.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy remembers.

HARRY

 

Harry had been walking with Eggsy when the news came in from Merlin, who had been behind the screen with Percival; the man had found him as he and Eggsy rounded a small bend in the path on the mansion grounds, and he had been paler and more shaken than Harry had ever seen him.

“I need to speak with you. Alone,” Merlin had said.

Harry saw Eggsy’s glance flicker between Merlin and himself. “I’ll be inside,” he said quietly, and he’d slipped his arm out from where it had been looped around Harry’s and headed back in the direction they had come, shoes crunching on the gravel.

Merlin had explained everything as soon as the boy had been out of earshot.

Roxy and Jay hadn’t been in the house when it was bombed – thank God. But thirty seconds later and they would have been; they had been on their way back from Garlon’s house when the missile had hit. They, and Percival and Merlin through the feed from their glasses, had seen everything, and Roxy, who had been closer to the house, had been thrown backwards by the blast.

The explosion had knocked her out. For those few endless, terrifying few seconds before Jay had shaken her awake, Merlin had thought she was dead.

This wasn’t just about their mission, Harry realized. That in itself wasn’t what had upset him. This was about the fact that it was the second time Merlin had witnessed someone he cared about almost die.

“They’ll be back within the hour,” Merlin said, and he still seemed shaken. Distant, agitated.

 _We have repressed trauma, all of us_ , Harry thought.

“They’ll be back,” Harry echoed, and he held Merlin’s gaze. “Just as you told me, Merlin. They’re not going anywhere. And we need to stay focused on the mission.”

Merlin hesitated, and then nodded. “Right. Yes. The mission.”

“Bomb analysis?” Harry asked gently, to keep Merlin’s attention away from where it was no doubt headed, back to seeing the blue, blue sky, smoke from the fires still burning after the explosion drifting through it and turning it a dark, sooty grey, hearing no response and being unable to do anything about it, maybe even back to when Harry was in Kentucky over two years ago and Merlin had seen his blood splattered across his broken glasses through the screen.

“I – they’re on it,” Merlin said, still somewhat more distantly than normal, but as he spoke Harry could see his mind refocusing on the present, and the hesitations and pauses dropped from his sentences as they became crisp and clear again. “We’ve sent our specialized team out there to try and sort through the wreckage while Roxy and Jay head back. I don’t imagine that it can be from anyone else other than Ross, but we won’t hear anything definitive for a few hours at least.”

“Mm. The information will be useful, though,” Harry said. “Anything they can get about the materials it was made of in addition to anything they can get on the missile’s targeting device could give us something on Ross. Unfortunately, though, the bomb would have destroyed any evidence of any bugs they might have put in our outpost, or anything else that would have told Ross we had sent agents back there to investigate.”

“Unfortunate, yes. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back through their feeds and see if I can catch something,” Merlin said, and he was fully back now, completely refocused.

Repression wasn’t always healthy, but sometimes it was necessary, Harry thought. Especially in their line of work. Especially when they couldn’t afford distraction, nor the time to slowly work through something.

There was a meeting that was quickly convened after Merlin had come to Harry with the news; most of the Kingsman knights already knew about Garlon, having learned of all of Kingsman’s important past cases upon knighthood, including all of the unsolved ones. By the end of the meeting, though, all of the knights also knew that Garlon was a human weapon seemingly coerced into action by a man named Ross Merkel. Arthur had thought it best to bring everyone else up to speed, considering Ross was quite literally and quite eagerly attempting to destroy Kingsman.

By the end of the meeting, all of the knights also knew that Garlon – at least, the Garlon they had deemed was responsible for the assassinations of past year – was previously failed recruit Eggsy Unwin.

“Why is he here?” Bedivere demanded, with a look at Harry that told Harry all he needed to know about how Bedivere felt about his level of care towards the boy. “Here, as in allowed to wander around freely, instead of being kept under close watch. Instead of, perhaps, being interrogated. We don’t know anything about the past two years. We don’t even know how many people he killed. For all he demonstrated of his loyalty when he was training with us, he still shot Merlin, and he’s still not talking.”

“That’s not what we were here to discuss,” Merlin fired back. The light from the window came in at a slight angle, and the scar on Merlin’s cheek was hidden in shadow. “But since we’re apparently talking about it now, I think we’d all agree that abusing him further isn’t going to encourage him to tell us anything, yes?”

“Since we’re talking about it, why don’t we try it?” Ector said with a sneer. “We all know where his dear family is now.”

Immediately, Harry felt the heat of anger rush to his face. “If you touch them, if you _dare_ hurt him –”

“It worked well enough for Ross,” Ector continued, despite the looks of doubt that several of the other knights were giving him. “He got dear Eggy to kill for him, but you’re telling us that being hard on him won’t get him to talk? Oh – I’m sorry, perhaps it was because being a killer was who Eggy was all along, and maybe Ross didn’t need to _resort_ to anything.”

“That’s enough,” Harry hissed, at the same time Arthur gave Ector a warning look.

“That’s rich, coming from someone whose candidate was among the first to fail last time,” Roxy said icily; Percival and Jay had tried to get her to check into Medical, but she’d headed straight to the meeting as soon as she’d come back. She was still covered in ash and one side of her face seemed slightly burned, but she was alive, and had very much come to Eggsy’s defense. Later, when Harry had asked her about this, asking her why she’d defended Eggsy’s innocence so fiercely even though she could only have based her judgment on the knowledge that his family had been kept hostage, she simply said, “I trust your judgment, Harry.”

Harry desperately hoped his judgment was right. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he were wrong. He didn’t want to think about how he would cope if he found out that Eggsy had betrayed them of his own will, that Eggsy wasn’t the boy he’d always thought he was.

He didn’t want to think about what would happen if Eggsy lied to them, and if Kingsman blindly followed false information into a trap.

“So forgive me, Ector, if I hesitate to trust your judgment. And I’m thoroughly ashamed,” Roxy was saying, her sharp gaze sweeping over the room, “that any of you would be okay with us hurting Eggsy’s family to get him to talk, even if you doubt Eggsy’s loyalty. What happened to the knight’s code that you all swore to uphold? What happened to protecting the innocent? What happened to not risking lives unless we absolutely need to? Or are we all just as bad as Ross now?”

Ector cleared his throat and looked away; the other knights in the room were unable to meet Roxy’s gaze, save the few who agreed with her.

“Well said, Lancelot,” Jay murmured, and Harry saw him glance at Merlin. He may not trust Eggsy, and he might not forgive him for shooting the man who had brought him to Kingsman, but he was a good man. He had honor, he had a conscience.

“Let’s let the people who were actually involved in this mission decide what to do,” Roxy said, after a few long moments of silence.

“And if those people are…predisposed…to feeling a certain way?” Bedivere challenged, glancing once again and extremely unsubtly at Harry, who bristled. “I’m not sure I fully trust the ability of a man to make proper judgment if he is emotionally invested in the individual whom he is expected to exact judgment on.”

“I assure you, the man who was shot would also be involved in these decisions,” Merlin said coldly. “I’m sure you can trust us to come to an agreement together.”

There was a cold, uneasy silence, and then Bedivere nodded once and sat back.

“Right,” Arthur said. “Now that the pleasantries have been gotten out of the way, it still remains that we must decide what course of action to follow next, and to attempt to answer the question as to how Ross Merkel knew where our second outpost was located.”

The knights, glancing somewhat uncomfortably at each other, nodded, and the meeting proceeded.

There was no answer to Arthur’s second question – at least, no confessed betrayal, nothing they could verify. It seemed impossible that Eggsy had anything to do with it, given that he had no scanners in his body and there had not been any inexplicable phone calls, emails, texts, or any other type of outgoing communication from anywhere on any of Kingsman’s properties. The only other likely possibility was that Ross’s network was bigger than they originally anticipated, and that there were many more agents that Kingsman knew nothing about. Under that assumption, it seemed perfectly possible that Ross had agents watching Roxy and Jay, knowing who they were from information that either Weber, Atkins, Loussac, or Eggsy himself had given Ross, and in doing so had been able to find out where they were staying. This information, in turn, would also be passed along to Ross, and he would have been able to send the missile to take them out.

Ultimately, Kingsman decided to lay low. Ross was getting aggressive, if this most recent bombing was anything to go by, and it likely had something to do with the fact that Ross must have known Kingsman had captured one of his agents alive. (There was, really, no way he _couldn’t_ have known.) The bombing, which they concluded only seemed likely to have been possible if Ross had positioned other agents around the area who had seen where Roxy and Jay were staying, was also an indication that Ross no longer seemed interested in taking live hostages. He had opted to attempt to kill them outright, and destroy a base that could have given him information, had he been able to get into it, rather than send his agents to take Roxy or Jay alive. Considering Kingsman had no new intel on Ross and Ross seemed hell-bent on destroying Kingsman, it would probably be safest to make Ross think that they were done for, let him let his guard down a bit.

Meanwhile, Harry would try and get something out of Eggsy.

 

 

 

“Ignore Ector,” Merlin murmured, as the meeting ended and the other knights began filing out of the room. “He’s an old man, and he’s old-fashioned. Of course, that doesn’t excuse him, but he never liked Eggsy to begin with – or Lee, for that matter – they weren’t ever ‘upper class’ enough for him. He’s bound to see the worst in Eggsy regardless of what he does.”

“It doesn’t help that he’s a homophobic shit, either,” Roxy muttered.

“As dear old Chester King was, and as most of our older knights still are,” Harry said with a frown; Ector’s words still left a sour taste in his mouth. “Merlin, I doubt Ector has the nerve to do anything without Arthur’s consent even if Arthur were likely to give it, but it would put my mind much more at ease to know that there was someone we trusted watching over Eggsy’s mother and sister.”

“I’ve got it,” Roxy said immediately.

“ _No_ ,” Merlin said. “Not right now, at least. Right now, you are to go straight to Medical and get yourself checked out. Until then, if I can’t get someone to watch over his family, I’ll do it myself. That’s an order, Roxy.”

Roxy was pissed, Harry could see it. He knew Merlin could see it too. But she clenched her jaw, gave him a brief nod, and did as she was told.

Eggsy, too, was back in the hospital. He’d somehow heard about the bombing, possibly from other Kingsman knights on their way to the meeting Arthur had called, and it had triggered him so badly that he’d pulled his newly-healed stitches fighting off the nurses who had come to help him, thinking that they were Ross’s other agents sent to hurt him or kill him.

Kay told Harry about it as he was walking with Roxy down to Medical. Harry had headed straight to the boy’s room as soon as he saw that Roxy was being seen to, his heart racing, his palms sweaty, fearing the worst even though Kay had told him that the boy just needed some bedrest and painkillers and that he’d be fine in a few days.

Physically fine, at least. Emotionally, not so much.

Kay didn’t need to specify that for Harry to know.

The boy was pale and shaken when Harry saw him, his gaze still blank even after an hour had passed since he’d been brought in. He barely reacted when Harry entered the room, had barely been able to respond when spoken to. He slipped in and out of dissociative states for the rest of the day, his hands limp over the covers of the hospital bed, and that night, when Harry had stayed with him, he’d had nightmares.

The next day, he started to remember.

 

 

 

He didn’t remember much, and what he did remember he didn’t speak of. The nightmares continued.

Other than that first day Eggsy had been landed back in the hospital, Harry was still spending the nights in his office, near enough to Eggsy that he could be there if Eggsy wanted him, but far enough to give the boy some privacy. The nurses had allowed Eggsy to go back to the Kingsman dorms after watching him for a few more hours, but he’d had nightmares that night again, and they’d brought him right back.

Harry was there on the fifth day in a row that he’d woken up frozen in fear during the middle of the night. It was the first night Eggsy had asked the nurses to call Harry in, and Harry had come down from his office as quickly as he could.

“Harry,” Eggsy said, as soon as Harry opened the door. He sounded almost frantic, and Harry could see the sheen of sweat on the boy’s forehead. JB was by the boy’s chest where he’d been every night, and he was whining and nosing at the boy’s ribs from where he was wrapped in the boy’s arms.

“I’m here,” Harry said, and he was at Eggsy’s bedside, gripping cold, trembling hands in his own. “I’m here, Eggsy, you’re alright.”

Eggsy’s breaths were shaky and uneven. “I’m sorry, Harry, I know I must’ve woken you –”

“Shh, love, don’t worry about it,” Harry murmured, giving Eggsy’s hand a gentle squeeze, his heart hurting at the fact that the boy was apologizing, even now. “I promise it’s alright, I wasn’t asleep. Now, are you alright?”

“I –” Eggsy broke off. He was still shaking. “I’m scared, Harry,” he said quietly, and his voice broke. “I’m scared of closin’ my eyes, because I always dream about it – about him. An’ what I did. And then I wake up an’ there’s no one here, just like back…back there…and I mean yeah, JB’s here, an’ he helps, but…”

At the sound of his name, the pug’s ears perked up from where he was pushing his head against Eggsy’s chest, and he whined again.

“Thanks for him, Harry, by the way,” Eggsy said, still shakily. “I know he’s yours now.”

“He was yours first,” Harry said simply.

There was a silence.

“You should try and get some rest, if you can,” Harry said. “There’s still a few hours before dawn.”

Eggsy looked nervous; his glance darted away and his pulse jumped in his throat. “Going to sleep is the worst,” he whispered. “I just…closin’ my eyes…”

“I can stay until you fall asleep,” Harry suggested softly. “Would that help?”

Eggsy swallowed. “I…maybe,” he said, a little uncertainly. “I don’t want to trouble you, I’m sorry –”

“Eggsy,” Harry said, with a huff of laughter. “Eggsy, please, stop apologizing. I only want you to be alright, whatever that takes.”

The boy’s eyes were glistening. “I don’t want to be a burden.”

“Eggsy,” Harry said, and sudden pain lent a sharpness to his words that hadn’t been there before. “Eggsy, look at me.” He waited until the bright green found him and held his gaze, and he spoke softly but firmly. “Never say that about yourself, Eggsy. I don’t give a damn who you’re talking to, and I don’t give a damn what they say about it, but you are not a burden. I promise.”

Eggsy swallowed again, and a moment later Harry felt him give his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Try and get some sleep,” Harry murmured. “I’ll be right here.”

Eggsy hesitated, and then nodded. His breathing was still a little shaky, but he closed his eyes, and a little while later he drifted back into sleep, the pug still curled against him.

Harry watched him for a while. The lamp on the bedside table was still turned on and in its dim glow Harry could see the gentle fluttering of the boy’s dark lashes, the soft curve of the boy’s lips. His pulse was still visible in his throat, but it was slowed now, quieted by sleep. The grip on Harry’s hand loosened, fingers relaxing and falling limp, and presently, head gently rising and falling on the boy’s chest, JB began to snore.

Harry wondered, a little sleepily now, lulled into tiredness by the boy’s even breathing, what dogs dreamt of, and what JB was dreaming of now.

He wondered, as peace and quiet settled back in, if it would be alright if he just stayed here forever, next to the boy he loved, even if nothing would come out of it. He didn’t expect anything to come of it, and after a life full of uncertainty and broken promises and no guarantees, to be near Eggsy would be more than enough. For Eggsy to love him back was more than he could ask for.

 _It’s alright, love,_ the boy had said.

_Love._

Harry loved him.

The nightmares came back an hour later. Harry saw the furrow in between Eggsy’s closed eyes, felt the tension return to his body, heard the shift in his breathing.

JB began to whine.

“Eggsy,” Harry said, when the boy’s breathing, instead of quieting with the ebb of bad dreams, quickened and rasped in his throat, when his brow furrowed and his expression tightened in pain, when Harry could read the tension in the lines of his body. “Eggsy, you’re alright.” He dared to touch the boy’s shoulder, to soothe him back to sleep, wishing more than anything that he could chase the nightmares away.

The boy’s eyes jerked open. He was panting, his gaze unfocused and panicked. “Harry,” he gasped, after a few moments, his eyes shifting to find Harry’s face where they stayed, wide and glistening.

“It’s me,” Harry said quietly.

“I – I shot you,” Eggsy whispered, and tears began to slide from the corners of his eyes. He reached for Harry, fingers digging into Harry’s forearms as if to tell himself that Harry was here, that Harry was alive, and then he began to sob. “I shot you,” he repeated, his voice breaking and his body shaking. “I fuckin’ shot you, Harry, I’m so sorry…”

“You didn’t,” Harry said gently, but he shifted closer so he could hold the boy in his arms, and he felt Eggsy curl into his chest and cling to his shirt as if Harry would fade away if he let go. “You never shot me. It was a dream, alright? Just a dream.”

“I’m sorry,” Eggsy said, over and over again, and he fell apart in Harry’s arms.

Somehow, within the next half hour, Harry ended up on the bed next to the boy. Eggsy was tucked against his chest, Harry’s arms still circled around him, their legs tangling together and Eggsy pressed as close to Harry as he could with the pug still between them, reassuring himself that Harry was there, that he was alright, and Harry murmured comforting words into his ear until his racing heartbeat began to slow.

Eggsy took a few deep, shuddering breaths.

“Alright?” Harry murmured. He was running his fingers gently, rhythmically, through the wispy silk of Eggsy’s hair.

“Yeah,” Eggsy whispered, after a pause. “I…I got your shirt wet. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Harry said, with a small smile.

Eggsy’s next breath was unsteady.

“It was a dream,” Harry said.

“A dream,” Eggsy echoed, and Harry felt a tremor run through his body.

“Shh, darling,” Harry said quietly. “You’re alright. You’re safe. I’m here now, and I’ll stay as long as you need me, I promise.”

Eggsy took another shuddering breath. Distantly, Harry wondered if the boy ever dreamt of shooting Merlin, or if that was something his mind still shied away from. He wondered if that was something Eggsy even remembered yet.

“Just…just stay tonight?” Eggsy asked quietly, almost pleading, after a little bit.

“The rest of tonight?”

“Y-yeah. I know there ain’t another bed,” Eggsy said, and he looked less and less certain as he spoke. “And I know there’s not much room on this one. I know you’re busy an’ all, so I get it if you’d rather rest on your own instead of spendin’ time here, but –” He broke off, swallowing, unable to meet Harry’s gaze, and he’d pulled away from Harry’s embrace slightly. “I’m sorry, I know I’ve been takin’ up all of your time an’ I know I’ve been takin’ your dog an’ I know you’ve been frustrated with me not sayin’ anythin’. I know I should be givin’ you more.”

“Eggsy,” Harry murmured. “We’re not frustrated. We know it takes time, and we know it’s difficult. We understand, love, believe me. Please, _please_ , don’t feel guilty for that.”

Eggsy swallowed again. The dim light of the lamp by his bed cast strange, stark shadows over his face, bringing out the hollows under his cheeks and accentuating the lines of his nose and jaw. In the gentle yellow light painted around them, Harry could see the boy’s jaw clench.

“I’ll stay,” Harry said gently, and almost immediately, he felt the boy relax.

It would help him just as much as it helped Eggsy.

Eggsy wasn’t the only one with nightmares.

 

 

 

“Chamonix,” Eggsy said, at breakfast on the ninth day since he’d been brought back into Medical. He wasn’t absolutely required to stay there anymore since his stitching was healing properly, but he still had nightmares and flashbacks, and Kay had said that it would probably be best for him to stay just in case something happened again. Harry had ended up staying with him every night.

But Harry paused now, heart suddenly hammering at what Eggsy had just said; Chamonix, France – it was the location Eggsy had written down several weeks ago, the small town in the French Alps that Merlin had sent out a few drones to scan, drones which had ultimately returned with no more intel than what Kingsman already had.

The name of a place Eggsy had never said aloud.

“Is Merlin listenin’?” Eggsy asked quietly, after a few moments of silence.

“No, but I can call him in, if you want me to,” Harry murmured. Distantly, he wondered yet again if Eggsy remembered shooting Merlin, or if his mind was still repressing that particular memory, shying away from it every time he got close.

Eggsy hesitated.

“Or I can get him the feed from the glasses,” Harry said.

Eggsy hesitated again, and then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be good.” His voice was distant, numb, and his expression blank. He was receding back inside himself, Harry could see, hiding behind a wall he’d built to shelter himself from the memories, from the pain. Retreating already, before they’d even started.

Harry tapped the corner of his glasses frame, turning on the transmission to Merlin’s screen. It would give Merlin a notification that Harry had connected; with any luck, the man would be able to head to his office soon and connect on his end to see the transmission. (If not, the feed would still be accessible for Harry and Merlin to review later.)

<Be there in two. Get started.> The message popped up barely thirty seconds later.

“He’s headed to his office now,” Harry said.

Eggsy swallowed. “Alright.”

There were a few more moments of silence.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Harry said quietly. “This is all on your own time.”

He could see a muscle jumping in Eggsy’s jaw. The boy was staring hard at his hands on the table in between them; the tray of food was mostly untouched, as it had been for almost every meal the past few weeks. He’d lost weight, and the hollows under his cheekbones, the shadows of his eyes, were even more pronounced now than they had been before.

Another few minutes passed in silence. The light in the corner of Harry’s vision told him that Merlin was connected now and was watching, but the other man didn’t speak.

“I don’t really remember everythin’ yet,” Eggsy said finally, still staring hard at his hands.

“That’s alright,” Harry murmured, after a few moments.

Eggsy swallowed and clenched his fists; it was another few moments before he spoke again. “I don’t remember everythin’, or I can’t, or don’t want to, I don’t know. And there was some stuff that I didn’t know to begin with. Ross didn’t trust givin’ all his info to one person. But I’ll tell you whatever I can.” He paused, gathering his thoughts, mustering up the courage to speak again. When he finally did, he might not have known everything Kingsman would have liked to know about Ross and his operation, and he might not have told them everything he did know, but it was a major step forward, and finally, Harry and Merlin felt that Kingsman might have a shot at taking down Ross and his network before he killed again.

Chamonix was indeed where Ross’s headquarters were located. Eggsy gave them all that he remembered of the layout; it turned out that the size of the underground complex rivalled that of Kingsman’s headquarters, and perhaps was even a little larger. Like Kingsman’s headquarters, it was a place that people could live in, but unlike Kingsman’s headquarters which wasn’t designed to hold prisoners in the building itself, Ross’s bunker appeared to be designed not only to keep intruders out, but also to keep prisoners in.

“There are security codes to access certain parts of it,” Eggsy said. “He’s probably changed all of the codes by now, or at least added somethin’ else to make sure you won’t be able to get in, but I’ll give you everythin’ I remember.”

“Certain parts?” Harry asked.

Eggsy nodded. “Yeah, you know, like Medical, and the hangar, and the dorms, and the meetin’ rooms and offices an’ everythin’ like that that you’ve got here. But Ross’s got some…other parts.”

“What are they?” Harry asked quietly. He’d heard the hitch in the boy’s breathing, seen the sudden nervousness in his eyes.

“This,” Eggsy said, and he pointed to an area on the building layout he’d drawn out. He spoke hesitantly, and his voice suddenly sounded small. “Ross’s weapons room, where we went to arm ourselves before a mission. I suppose Kingsman’s got somethin’ like it too, but not as serious. With Ross, we’d have to log ourselves in and write exactly what we were takin’, and at the end of every mission we’d have to log it all back in or account for somethin’ if we lost it, or explain who we’d – who we’d shot, for each bullet we used.” He swallowed, still staring hard at the table in front of him, where the food had started getting cold.

“What kind of weapons?” Harry prompted gently, after a few minutes had passed in silence.

“Not just weapons,” Eggsy amended. “Flash flares, smoke grenades, hand grenades, earpieces for communication that we were only allowed to use on missions. Nothin’ as high-tech as the shit Kingsman has, Ross didn’t have that kind of imagination and neither did the tech guys he had. They were good, I mean, they were brilliant, but not…not quite like Kingsman. So no darts or anythin’. No remote poisonin’ shit or fancy shoes or any of that. But knives, yeah. Tasers. Tranquilizers an’ sedatives.”

A few more moments of silence.

“An’ guns,” Eggsy said finally. “Handguns. Sniper rifles. Automatics and semi-automatics. Anythin’ you could think of. As for the ammunition, he had –” He broke off.

Harry tried not to think.

“Jacketed bullets,” Eggsy said. “Semi jacketed. Wad cutters. Round noses. Anythin’. Includin’ the type he had his weapons specialists make. The one that…the one that I was shot with.”

Harry’s hands tightened where they were under the table. _Shrapnel._

They were both quiet for a long time.

“Store rooms,” Eggsy said after a while, pointing to a few large rooms scattered throughout the compound. His voice broke the quiet, but it seemed a little steadier than it had been a few minutes ago. “Or processing rooms or somethin’ of that sort. He got shipments in, sometimes, and I don’t know exactly what they are, but they went into these rooms. Security was really tight around those times – towards the middle of each month. I guess Ross was always afraid of someone sneakin’ in with the shipments.” He hesitated, and then pointed at a different area of the blueprint. “These are the rooms we lived in. Individual rooms. Iron doors, all of them had an electromagnetic locking system but Ross could control it remotely too.”

“What was in them?” Harry asked quietly.

“I never saw any of the other rooms,” Eggsy said. “But I’d guess they’re all pretty much the same. A bed, a bathroom – we ain’t ever allowed to go anywhere without Ross’s permission – a desk with a…I dunno, a projection site, I guess, where you could see Ross talk to you. Hologram. Always a hologram. A set of speakers in the corner of the room so Ross could actually talk to you too, maybe a camera.” He shrugged; barely more than a twitch of his shoulders. “It’s not much.”

_It’s a prison cell._

“What about this?” Harry asked, pointing to a bit off to the side of the complex that Eggsy hadn’t specified. “What’s this area?”

“I don’t know,” Eggsy said, and he suddenly looked tense again. “Only a few people were ever allowed in it, some of Ross’s older assets, but they wasn’t supposed to talk about it and no one ever asked.” He hesitated, and his hands had clenched into fists. “But I think it might be where I was – where Ross kept –” He broke off, taking a few shaky breaths.

_Where Ross tortured you._

He could see Eggsy’s blood again, feel it sticky on his fingers.

“You’re alright,” Harry murmured, both to reassure the boy and to remind himself. He felt the now-familiar rush of anger that came with thinking about what Ross had done to Eggsy, but he couldn’t let it show; not now. He’d already let his anger show in front of the boy once, when Eggsy had just woken up and he’d demanded to know why Eggsy had thrown himself between Harry and a spray of bullets even knowing Harry was wearing a bulletproof Kingsman suit, and he’d seen how terrified the boy had been to see his anger.

No, he couldn’t be angry, not now, even if his fury would be directed at someone else.

“Take your time,” Harry said instead, as gently as he could, as patiently as he could.

Eggsy swallowed a few times, hands fisting and relaxing over and over. Harry couldn’t know exactly what he was remembering, but he knew it was hard.

_His hands were sticky and hot with blood –_

“Harry,” Merlin said in his ear. It was the first time he’d spoken so far.

<I’m alright> Harry typed, after a bit of hesitation.

“Kingsman headquarters,” Merlin murmured. “Medical center. Eggsy’s safe.”

 _Safe._ But –

<Does Eggsy know that?>

Merlin didn’t answer.

“It’s easy, once you’ve gotten in,” Eggsy said, when he could speak again, and it didn’t escape Harry’s notice that he’d shifted the topic away from where, undoubtedly, Ross had kept him while he was being tortured. Even then, his words were hesitant. “Ross doesn’t really let any of us talk to each other, except if we’re on a mission together. I mean, we can talk if we see each other around the building, but stuff that you have? The glasses? Hell, even phones? None of that shit. Nothin’ that’ll let us talk to each other if we’re not face to face. Unless we’re on a mission.”

“And communication with Ross himself?” Harry asked quietly, and he, too, was glad for the change of topic. The sound of Eggsy crying out in pain, in fear, the sight of the blood spilling out of his body, the feeling of it coating his hands, were still all too fresh in his mind. “Were you able to talk with him?”

Eggsy shook his head. He seemed a little calmer now, now that they were talking about something other than Ross torturing him. “No. Not in person, at least. I ain’t ever seen ‘im in person. The…the hologram, with whatever face he’d taken, that’s all I ever saw. An’ I never was able to talk to ‘im unless he called in first. We were supposed to be self-sufficient, and he doesn’t really listen in on our trackers or nothin’, either, unless we’re on missions or sees that we’ve left the building without telling ‘im.”

“So no communication with other assets, no communication with Ross,” Harry said. “At least, none that was reliable, unless you were on a mission.”

“None. So once you’ve gotten in, no one’s gonna know you’re there unless someone sees you and manages to find someone else to tell in person, and they go an’ spread the word. That’s the good part, yeah? It’s gettin’ in in the first place that’s hard. His security is…well, most of the typical stuff, but the typical stuff that’s hard to hack. Biometric scans, voice recognition, facial recognition, security codes, y’know. All of that. I can give you the codes I knew, but he’s probably changed them an’ I don’t know how I can help you with everythin’ else. He’ll have me scratched from all the biometric stuff and voice recognition an’ everythin’.”

“That’s alright,” Harry said. “Just tell us anything you can give us.”

So Eggsy did. He told Harry all of the codes he could remember, and Harry could see how hard it was for him, but he also told Harry all of the shift switches that he could remember, everything he could recall about the functioning of the place.

It took hours, spread over the course of the next week, for Eggsy to finish telling everything he knew. For Eggsy to actually remember everything, for Eggsy to be able to speak of everything – or at least of as much as he could right now – that he remembered. About half of that time was them sitting in silence, Harry waiting patiently for Eggsy to overcome whatever barrier was in his mind, being there to remind Eggsy of the present when he became too caught up in memories and emotions he couldn’t control, helping him find the words when he couldn’t find them himself.

There were entire days that went by where Eggsy had said nothing.

Harry didn’t rush him.

Merlin didn’t ask him to.

It was hard for Eggsy, and it was hard for Harry to watch. He could see the struggle in the tension in the boy’s body, in the distant look in his eyes, and he knew how it felt, the first few days after he started to remember something terrible that had happened. Harry wanted to tell him to take it easy, to not force himself, but that was a luxury he and Eggsy couldn’t afford right now. That was a luxury that Kingsman, that the _world_ , couldn’t afford right now.

Kingsman needed intel to get to the heart of Garlon’s network, and that intel had to come from Eggsy. There was no other choice.

 

 

 

“One last thing,” Eggsy said a week later, after he’d told Harry and Merlin all of the codes he could remember, and everything he could say about how Ross ran the place. “I don’t know if this will be useful, but I saw someone that I didn’t recognize at a computer once. It was probably one of the people Ross had in tech an’ doing computer work on the missions, gettin’ all the money out of his targets’ accounts, but…I don’t know.”

“Whatever it is, it could help,” Merlin said quietly in Harry’s ear.

“Anything,” Harry said.

Eggsy hesitated. His hands were fisted on the tabletop; Harry could see how muscle and tendon stood out in his forearms. It was the same table they always sat at, always at the same time after breakfast, and Eggsy had stared so hard at the grain over the course of the past week that Harry wouldn’t have been surprised if the boy would be able to draw it from memory now.

“You’re safe, Eggsy,” Harry said quietly, and he reached out over the table almost unconsciously. For a moment his heart thudded as he realized what he’d done, and he almost drew back, but then Eggsy reached forward.

Their fingertips touched, if only just.

“A password,” Eggsy said. “I…I don’t know what it was for. But I felt…I know it wasn’t somethin’ I was supposed to be seeing. And…and no one knows I saw it.”

Through his glasses, Harry heard Merlin’s sharp intake of breath.

There was a long moment of silence.

“I need a pen,” Eggsy said quietly.

Wordlessly, Harry reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled one out. He saw a flicker of recognition in the boy’s eyes as he handed the pen to him; it was the same type of pen Harry had shown him in the dressing room over two years ago, when the tailor hadn’t been there and Harry had been the one to take the boy’s measurements, to fit him in his bespoke suit.

_Skin was soft beneath his fingertips, and if he just let his touch linger a little longer, maybe lean forward a little to press his lips against the pale silk –_

Eggsy’s eyes flashed up to meet Harry’s briefly, and Harry wondered if the boy was remembering the same thing.

And then he looked down, and Harry looked away.

“This is the password,” Eggsy said after a few moments, passing Harry the napkin on which he’d scribbled a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. “At least, the most that I could make out based on what I saw of the keyboard when he was typin’ it in.”

“He?” Harry asked, swallowing down the pain at the memory of love and the possibility of gentle touches that they had never shared.

“Yeah. I don’t know who it was. I’ve never seen ‘im before, but then again I haven’t seen most of Ross’s assets, especially the ones in tech.” Eggsy’s voice was subdued now. Closed off, after having forced his mind back to a place it didn’t want to go. “This is what he was logging into,” Eggsy said, pointing at the drawing of a logo he’d made on the napkin. “A website, a cloud account, I don’t know what it was, I’d never seen it before either. I don’t know if you’d be able to access it from somewhere other than Ross’s severs.”

“Most likely some type of cloud storage,” Merlin said. “If it’s sensitive information, it wouldn’t make sense for Ross not to have backed it up somewhere. It just might be location-locked. I’ll take a look at it though and see if I can’t do anything to crack it.”

“Merlin’s taking a look at it,” Harry said.

“If you find anythin’,” Eggsy began, hesitantly.

“We’ll tell you if he gets in,” Harry said.

“ _When_ I get in,” Merlin corrected.

Eggsy looked nervous. “I don’t…I don’t know if I want to know what he found.” He swallowed, looked away; the angle sharpened the line of his jaw. “I’d like to know if you get in,” he said. “But in terms of what’s there afterwards…I don’t know if I’m ready for that. Or if…if there’s anythin’ about…if there’s anythin’ that might have to do with what I…” He broke off, his shoulders hunched. “I don’t want to think about it any more than I have to,” he said finally.

“I understand,” Harry murmured. He hesitated, and dared to reach out a little further, letting his fingers tangle together with Eggsy’s. “Thank you.”

There was a silence. Eggsy looked tormented, a muscle jumping in his jaw, his eyes shadowed as he stared hard at something to his left, still unable to meet Harry’s gaze. Harry sat across from him, watching him, letting him take the time he needed. He was still angry; fury at Ross simmered at the back of his mind, making his skin crawl, making his fingers itch to throttle the man’s neck for what he had done to Eggsy. But Eggsy was scared now, vulnerable and in pain, and right now, he didn’t need Harry’s anger.

Eggsy spoke after a while. “Harry, I…” He trailed off, cleared his throat, and started again. “Can we talk? About the…about the mission, I mean.” His voice trembled slightly. “I just…I want to explain. My part of it, I mean. I know it doesn’t mean you can forgive anythin’ I did, but…but I hate the thought of you thinkin’ I did everythin’ that I did because I wanted to. B’cause I didn’t, Harry, I hated every minute of it, and now that I remember everythin’ I can’t stop thinkin’ about it, and I feel like I need to tell someone, and I…I wanted it to be you.”

Harry paused. “Now?”

“Y-yeah. If…if that’s alright.”

<Merlin?>

“Go ahead,” Merlin said quietly. “I’ll sign off.”

Eggsy looked uncertainly up at Harry. “Is it…is it alright?”

Harry typed a quick thanks to Merlin and gave Eggsy’s fingers a gentle squeeze. “Of course.”

Eggsy took a few long, deep, breaths; slightly shaky, slightly uneven, and Harry felt Eggsy’s grip on his hand tighten. He was silent for a long time, his breath catching in his throat several times as if he were about to speak, but it was nearly a quarter of an hour before he actually did.

“Ross assigned it,” he said finally. “I was supposed to take down Kingsman. That was my mission. But I…I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. I thought of you, and of Merlin, and of Roxy, and of all the people I cared about who I would hurt, and I knew that you probably already all knew somethin’ about Ross and what I was doing, even if you didn’t know it was me. An’ I couldn’t…” He trailed off, his jaw clenching.

Silence, again.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of you findin’ out it was me,” he said after a while, and his voice was grating, as if he was forcing the words out like they were sandpaper on his tongue. “I’d seen a bit on the Garlon case at my time here as a recruit, so I knew what Kingsman knew Garlon had already done, and I knew what you all thought of it. I knew how much you hated him and wanted him dead. So the thought of you knowin’ that _I_ was the one behind all the shit that had been happenin’…I just…I couldn’t stand that. An’ that’s why it took so long for any of us – for me, or for any of the other three of Ross’s guys – to do anythin’.

“I was Gaz,” he said. “I figure you know that by now.” He huffed a laugh, but it was pained. “I’m Garlon. I’m responsible for killing –” He broke off.

Harry’s ribs were hurting again, even though he hadn’t moved. He wondered how much of the pain was psychological, the ache dripping down from where Eggsy’s pain was hurting his heart. “You don’t have to,” he said quietly, about Eggsy talking about the mission. “Of course, if you want to, I’ll listen. But please, love, don’t feel like I expect an explanation.”

Eggsy swallowed. “I…I need to,” he said. “I need you to know.”

“Alright,” Harry murmured. “But please, on your own time.”

Eggsy nodded. “Yeah. Thanks, Harry.” His voice was small.

Another few minutes passed in silence before Eggsy spoke again.

“I remember the pastry shop,” he said. “I remember the video. I didn’t want…I couldn’t…” He broke off, took a few deep breaths, and started again. “The video was a last resort. I knew it would hurt you, and I couldn’t stand the thought of hurting you. Even though my mission was to…to bring you down. Kingsman. Everyone.” He’d drawn his hand back, now, as if he were too ashamed to touch Harry. Too ashamed to even look at him.

“I knew it would hurt you,” Eggsy continued. “I saw you when I was leavin’ that pastry shop. I saw you see me, and I saw you hesitate. I figured…” He let out a shuddering breath. “Ross told me, over an’ over, that he was the only one who cared about me. But you…part of me thought you might still have cared, when I saw you. Even if it was just a little bit. I…I believed what Ross said,” Eggsy confessed, and his voice broke. “When you get told somethin’ over an’ over with nothing to contradict it – an’ that’s not your fault, Harry, you had no way of knowin’ where I was and Kingsman had no reason to give any fucks about me anymore – but when you get told somethin’ like that, and when you’re forced to say it, every single day…you start believin’ it.

“So I believed him.” There was a quaver in Eggsy’s voice, a slight blush of red around his eyes like he was trying to hold back tears. “I believed tha’ he was the only one who cared about me, that everythin’ he was doin’ was for my own good. Which is…which is why I keep apologizin’, Harry, I know you say I don’t need to. But after that, I just…it’s hard to believe that anyone really cares about me, or is doing anythin’ more than just puttin’ up with me an’ that I’m just takin’ their time that they don’t want to give.

“An’ I felt like that, even back at the pastry shop. I already believed all of what Ross told me about that. But then I saw you, and…I don’t know. I thought that maybe, even if you didn’t _really_ care about me anymore, you at least still remembered me. An’ maybe…maybe you remembered me with some…I don’t know, some fondness, I guess.” He laughed and shook his head, as if he thought what he said sounded ridiculous. “Even a little bit of affection. Or maybe even anger, for failin’ that last test so spectacularly. Something more than just indifference.”

Indifference. It was such an ugly word, and it stung.

But Harry couldn’t speak, not now. It wasn’t his place to speak right now. Eggsy needed someone to listen, not someone to say he was wrong, to prove him otherwise.

“Or maybe that was jus’ me tryin’ to make myself feel better, jus’ tryin’ to rebel, in my own way, against Ross. Tellin’ myself someone cared even if it weren’t true. An’ I didn’t want to hurt you, so I…I waited. I don’t know what I was waitin’ for, really, I just…procrastinated, I guess,” Eggsy said, with another huff of laughter, and then he was abruptly serious again. “Ross was angry. I knew he would be. That’s when he gave me the first warning – the twelfth of July. About a week after you saw me leavin’ that pastry shop. I knew he was gettin’ impatient, and I knew he could hurt my mum and my sister if I didn’t do what he expected, so I…I had to do somethin’.

“And then the thing at the warehouse, the first time. When you saw me for the first time.” Eggsy paused, taking a deep, shaky breath, and Harry wondered if he was remembering killing Atkins. “I came up with that.” The words came out in a rush, like a confession. “I remembered Valentine, the gel tracker he used in your wine. I figured Merlin would’ve made somethin’ like that too, as soon as Kingsman found out about it, and given that Valentine had happened two years ago I figured he’d have gotten one by then. I also figured that you didn’t have anythin’ on us, and since the external bugs weren’t working, you’d try the gel. So I told A130-2 – sorry, Loussac – to make sure he drank the Coke. I’d seen you put it in the drink, you know, so I thought, if you would be listenin’, that we could stage a conversation and lure you in.”

His voice broke on the last word. He’d withdrawn his hands completely, his fingers slipping out of Harry’s reach, and there was tension ribboned through every muscle of his body. Harry could see it in the way the veins stood out in the boy’s clenched fists, in the hunch of his shoulders.

He spoke again, after a few more minutes of silence. He said nothing about Atkins, but he explained how through the scanner in his eye translating lip movements to words, he’d heard the conversation Harry, Roxy, Merlin, and Percival had had the same night, and that he’d heard that Kingsman still didn’t know who Garlon was. He’d learned that Kingsman had gotten nothing from the encounter, even as Ross had gotten nothing from Kingsman, and when Ross gave him his second warning the next day, he felt that he didn’t have any other choice but to try and bug Kingsman to get something.

“We were wondering about that,” Harry said, with a slight frown. “We couldn’t understand why you’d start bugging us then instead of earlier.”

“It was because I knew what you would do,” Eggsy said, and he sounded tired now; numb, as opposed to the pain he’d so obviously been in before. “You didn’t know who I was, and you didn’t even know I was in the area. It made it easy for me to overhear things, sometimes, and since I’d been in Kingsman for a bit, since I knew you an’ Merlin…” He trailed off and was quiet for a while before starting again.

“I knew you’d be wonderin’ about us startin’ to bug you then. I figured you’d read it as desperation, considering we’d just…considering we’d just lost an agent.” He bit out the words. “I hoped you’d get overconfident and make a mistake, so that I wouldn’t have to do anythin’. I wanted to sit back and wait for an opportunity, since if somethin’ Kingsman did led to you or Roxy gettin’ caught, it seemed…I don’t know, it seemed like it would be easier, instead of me knowin’ that _I_ was the one who brought you in. Takin’ that chance was easier than knowin’ I was the one who had caused it.

“But you didn’t do anythin’ wrong,” Eggsy said, with a short, huffed laugh. It did nothing to ease the tension from his shoulders, nothing to lessen the guilt Harry could hear throbbing in his voice. “You fuckin’ wankers, you did everythin’ perfectly. Figured you were waitin’ for us to make a mistake, too, except since Ross hadn’t killed anyone you probably didn’t have someone breathin’ down your backs telling you to hurry up an’ bring in your target. Hence the video.”

Harry flinched at that; he couldn’t stop himself from edging his hands back, couldn’t prevent the wince that no doubt Eggsy had caught. He saw Weber’s knife across the boy’s throat again, heard the boy’s screams, saw his blood pooling on the floor beneath him. He heard gunshots again, heard the boy crying for Harry to help him, heard the fear in his voice as he realized he was dying.

“I had Ross send it to me,” Eggsy said quietly. “And you know everything after that.”

Harry flinched again, bile rising in the back of his throat at the boy’s words, his heart thudding in his chest.

It hadn’t been fake. Ross had tortured Eggsy, and he’d filmed it, and that was what Eggsy had sent him.

What he saw had been what Ross had done to turn Eggsy into his weapon.

“Harry?” Eggsy asked, and his voice was small, almost afraid. He was looking up at Harry for the first time since he’d started to talk. “Harry, are you alright?”

He was trembling, he realized, his hands were gripping the table so hard that his knuckles had turned white and his breaths quick and shallow in his throat.

“Yes,” Harry said. His voice was hoarse, scratchy, and he paused to clear it. He forced his body to relax, loosened his grip on the table, focused on his breathing until it slowed and resembled something normal again, and felt a surge of guilt that Eggsy had been the one to check on _him_ , when Eggsy was the one talking about what he had gone through, when Eggsy was the one who had been forced to do terrible things against his will, when Eggsy was the one who had been manipulated and coerced into killing.

“Yes,” Harry repeated, and his voice was a little steadier now. “I’m alright. I just…knowing what Ross did to you…it makes me angry.”

“I’m sorry,” Eggsy said. “About everythin’. I know that all the things I did…I know I can’t ask for forgiveness, not from you or anyone else I hurt. I know that’s not fair. But I wanted you to know anyways, so that maybe someone at least can…so that not everyone thinks I did it all willingly. An’ maybe you’ll still think that I’m a shit person, and you’d be right, considering…” He trailed off. His eyes were glistening.

“Eggsy,” Harry whispered, and there was an aching pain that radiated out to his shoulders from his heart. “Eggsy, don’t say that. That’s not what you are.”

Eggsy swallowed. “It went against everythin’ in me,” he said. “Doing what Ross wanted. The idea of hurtin’ _you_ , of all people, after what you’ve given me…I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t right, and of course none of it was right, it was all fucked up, killin’ all those people, but you were just…I knew that doing anythin’ to hurt you was a whole other level, because I…the way I felt…” He trailed off again, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths before starting again. “The whole time I was with him I wanted so desperately for Ross to be wrong, when he told me that he was the only one who cared, and that he was makin’ me do this for my own good or that everythin’ he’d done to me was for my own good. For my safety, as he put it, since he said he was the only one who cared. I wanted _so much_ for him to be wrong, Harry, and I still believed –”

He broke off, his hands trembling, his breaths unsteady. There was so much pain in the way he sat there in front of Harry, and Harry didn’t dare hope, didn’t dare think, about what the boy was trying to say.

He couldn’t think about the possibility that the boy still loved him. That wasn’t what this was about, and it would be selfish for him to ask, to bring up something as trivial as asking if Eggsy still loved him. But for Eggsy to think that Ross was right, for Eggsy to think that _Ross_ was the only one who cared for him, was unacceptable.

“He was wrong,” Harry said softly. _I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved anything else, and I want to love you enough that it outweighs all of the pain he put you through. I’ll try, if you let me._

Eggsy clenched his jaw.

“He was not the only one who cares about you,” Harry continued, and his hands trembled a bit, laying his heart out on the table between them. “He…what he did wasn’t caring. I want you to know that, to believe that. What he did was manipulation – and that’s in the kindest of terms. He wanted to convince you of that to gain your loyalty, to bring you down so that you would rely on him. But he was lying.”

Eggsy was silent.

“And if you don’t believe that, the last time we spoke about…about how we felt, before all of this,” Harry began, and he heard Eggsy’s breath hitch in his throat.

“You don’t owe me anythin’,” Eggsy said quickly, and Harry knew that he was on the defense again, blocking him out before he’d even gotten a chance to say speak because he was afraid of what he might hear. “I remember what happened, and I get that it only happened b’cause neither of us thought we’d ever see each other again. But things have changed now, yeah? I get it. I get that things are different, and I ain’t holdin’ it against you. So if you was worryin’ about that, don’t. I get it.”

Harry blinked. “Eggsy, I…that’s not what I was going to say.”

Eggsy’s brow furrowed in confusion, and Harry felt his heart ache at how familiar it was, at how much he’d missed those little parts of Eggsy. Those parts were coming back now, slowly but surely, pushing their way up through the cracks in the shell that Ross had made of him.

He’d always been so wonderfully expressive, and Ross had beaten all of the emotion out of him. Beaten out everything and replaced it with pain.

“Well, what then?” Eggsy asked.

Harry huffed a laugh. He suddenly found that he was unable to meet Eggsy’s eyes, even though he longed to see that green, his calm in the storm. “I…what I wanted to say was that what happened last time…I don’t feel any differently. And I realize now – realized a while ago, actually, but it didn’t seem relevant anymore – that I never fully articulated what it was exactly that I felt.”

“Harry,” Eggsy interrupted, and his voice was soft and pained and cut through Harry’s words like a knife. “Harry, don’t. Please. Don’t say it just to make me feel better either. Don’t lie to me. That’s worse.”

“I’m not lying,” Harry said quietly.

Eggsy blinked. “I…I don’t understand,” he said, and the words were like hammer blows to Harry’s chest.

Harry’s breath stuck in his throat. _It means I love you_ , he thought, but it was so much harder than he’d thought to actually say it out loud. It was real, what he felt, of course it was real, but it was so _ridiculously_ real that it was a little terrifying how those three words didn’t even begin to encapsulate what he felt.

“You are the most important thing to me in my entire life,” he said instead, and he saw disbelief flit across the boy’s face.

Eggsy’s mouth opened, and then closed, and then opened again. “I don’t understand,” he said again. His hands were fisted in the sheets.

“You don’t understand how I could care?” Harry asked, bewildered and a little hurt, feeling his heart crumble in on itself at the way the boy flinched at his words.

“I…yeah. I don’t get… _that_.”

“Eggsy –” Harry broke off, not completely sure how to continue. “There’s nothing to understand,” he managed finally. “Just…I want you to know that Ross was wrong, that he was lying. There are so many people who truly care for you, and he wasn’t one of them. I care about you deeply, whether you can understand it or not. I loved you then, and I love you now. I never stopped loving you.” He huffed a laugh; it sounded unsteady. He was a spy; lying was his nature, his job, and the honesty he’d expressed just now had shaken him. “In fact, those three words aren’t nearly enough to convey the depth to which I care for you, to which I…to which I want to be with you. And if you still feel the same…”

Eggsy glanced up at him; a bright flash of green, and Harry didn’t dare hope.

“Do you?” he asked, and it was barely more than a whisper. He knew it was unfair, that he shouldn’t be asking the boy something like this so soon after all that had happened, but it slipped out from between his lips anyway.

Eggsy looked away. He didn’t answer.

Harry’s fingers were resting against the back of Eggsy’s hand, feeling the warmth skitter through his fingertips at the touch. Eggsy glanced at him uncertainly but didn’t draw away, and when Harry looked up at him he held his gaze.

Hope flared, despite Harry’s best efforts. He saw the quickening of Eggsy’s pulse in his neck, the slight dusting of pink that lent color to his cheeks. He saw Eggsy’s gaze dart down to his lips.

Fuck.

Three decades of strict Kingsman training, three decades spent immaculately separating his emotions from his job, three decades spent learning complete self-control, and now all Harry could think about was how badly he wanted Eggsy to kiss him.

“Harry,” Eggsy began.

“I love you,” Harry whispered.

“But Kingsman regulation –”

“Fuck regulation,” Harry said.

Eggsy drew a sharp breath, and then his hand was somehow at the nape of Harry’s neck, tangling in his hair, and his lips were pressed against Harry’s.

The kiss was raw, aching, full of longing. Eggsy’s lips were chapped and dry but still ridiculously soft, his breath cool and sweet, his nails against Harry’s scalp sending shivers down his spine. It was a little stiff, what with both of them bending over the table and Eggsy doing his best not to pull at his wounds, but it was sweet and deep and better than anything else Harry could have asked for.

And then Eggsy stiffened and abruptly pulled away.

“Eggsy, what –”

“I’m sorry,” Eggsy said, and his voice was broken. “I shouldn’t have – I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Harry drew back. His skin felt cold without Eggsy’s touch, pain settling like a cold stone in his gut. “No, I was out of line, I shouldn’t have presumed that you –”

“It’s not you,” Eggsy interrupted. “Please, Harry, don’t ever think that. I jus’ need some time to…to figure things out. About myself. And what happened to me, and what I did, and how I…how we…” He trailed off.

“I understand,” Harry said gently, even though they both knew he couldn’t. Not fully, anyway. But it’s what the boy needed to hear right now, and regardless of what happened or if Eggsy felt the same, Harry was utterly and entirely devoted to him.

It was weakness, and he knew it.

He didn’t care. Loving Eggsy was a part of him, now, even if it hurt.

“I’m sorry,” Eggsy whispered.

Harry’s chest felt hollow, as if the boy’s anguish was a physical being that had ripped a hole through him to grip at his heart. “Don’t be,” he said gently. He wanted to reach out, to take the boy’s hand, but that suddenly felt intrusive, and he resisted the urge. He was suddenly furious at himself for having let his emotions take hold of him so easily with so little regard for what Eggsy had gone through, for not allowing Eggsy the time he knew he needed to take. “It’s alright. It’s not your fault. I’m not angry.”

Eggsy swallowed. “Thank you,” he said quietly. He seemed unable to meet Harry’s gaze.

There was a silence. Awkward, strained.

Harry cleared his throat. “I’ll, ah, I’ll leave you to rest now.” It seemed only proper.

Pain flashed across the boy’s face; a temporary tightening of his features, thinning of his lips. Harry could see the way tendons stood out against the boy’s clenched fists.

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, hoarsely. He hesitated, and then spoke again, and his voice was small. “Come back soon, though, yeah?”

A little bit of warmth blossomed in Harry’s chest, lending a small curve to the corners of his lips. “Of course.”

Harry would always come back to him.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry promised Eggsy that Kingsman would go after Ross and take him down; thus, they start to form a plan. But complications arise, and Harry worries.

HARRY

 

Merlin managed to find what the password had been for. An investigation of the site revealed that it was indeed some kind of cloud storage, but there didn’t seem to be much other information readily available. It seemed most likely that it was a type of cloud storage Ross had come up with for himself – everything programmed, built, and likely financed out of his pocket (which, in turn, was of course financed by the people he killed and stole from). In the case that the account was location-locked as many other existing cloud accounts are, Merlin rerouted the signal through Chamonix before attempting the login.

Merlin himself was surprised that it worked. “I thought Ross might manage his account activity more closely,” he said through the glasses, and Harry could hear his frown. “But perhaps he was over-confident and didn’t think anyone would get this far. As long as he hasn’t somehow programmed some other security into this or installed some kind of attack virus, we should be in. I’ll let you know what I find.”

Harry had been in Eggsy’s room at the time. It had been two days since Eggsy had told him about the password, two days since they’d kissed. Harry tried not to think too hard about that part. He had wanted to give the boy some space, not wanting to intrude and make him uncomfortable, but Eggsy’s wounds had been bothering him and he had called him back. Now, Harry was sitting beside Eggsy as the boy lay in bed. Harry was reading and Eggsy was resting, but Eggsy had reached out, and their fingers tangled gently together.

Harry harbored no delusions, but it felt like love, a little. Harry let his heart cherish it.

“He got in,” Harry said quietly, when he got the news from Merlin.

Eggsy, who had been almost absentmindedly stroking the back of Harry’s hand, paused. “That’s…good,” he said, cautious, glancing at Harry.

“It’s a start. He’ll keep me updated, but he hasn’t run into any problems yet. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” Eggsy said. “It’s probably the weather is all. It’s been rainy. How are your ribs?”

Harry blinked. “I never…”

“I was an agent, too,” Eggsy reminded him quietly with a small smile. “You think you could come and see me every day for a month and expect me not to notice? I just…I should’ve asked sooner, I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. They’re alright,” Harry said. “They’ve been healing well.”

“And…and Kingsman?” Eggsy asked. His wounds might be bothering him, but mentally, today was a better day for him. He seemed a little lighter, a little more relaxed. Harry hadn’t been staying in the boy’s recovery room overnight anymore, and Eggsy hadn’t asked him to, but the nurses had told him that the nightmares had been better last night. He hadn’t woken, and the small monitors he’d been wearing constantly for the past few weeks since his surgery reported only slight changes in heart rate and breathing; changes that could be attributed to a natural sleep cycle.

Harry knew that it was an improvement unlikely to last long, at least for now, so soon after everything had happened. Until Eggsy healed, the occasional nights of calm were just an oasis, a brief respite from the chaos that was everything else. But he was glad for them all the same.

“How’s Kingsman?” Eggsy asked. He looked uncertain, as if he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear news that may go bad. “I was just wonderin’ since…the place in Kensington…I don’t know, has Ross…has Ross done anythin’? An’ you don’t have to tell me,” he added quickly. “I know I’m not actually part of Kingsman an’ I know a lot of the other agents don’t trust me. I know _you_ might not trust me, an’ I get that. I just…I hate bein’ kept in the dark if it’s just because people think it’ll hurt me to know what’s goin’ on.”

“It’s alright, I understand. And I do trust you, Eggsy. But no,” Harry said, truthfully. “He hasn’t done anything since then. We’re staying low for now, until we can figure out what we’re going to do, and hopefully whatever Merlin finds will help us with that. What you’ve given us has already helped tremendously,” he said gently, giving Eggsy’s hand a light squeeze. “We just want everything we can get before we head in.”

Suddenly, Eggsy looked tense; his nails dug into the back of Harry's hand. “You’re heading in?”

“We need to,” Harry said. “If he really had six hundred agents, there are so many more people he could hurt, so much more damage he could do, and we need to stop him. You...you wished for us to stop him, yes?"

“No,” Eggsy said. “I mean – _you’re_ heading in?”

_Oh._

“Yes,” Harry said gently, softly. “Roxy as well.”

“Why you?” Eggsy demanded, and he looked scared now, and Harry felt a twinge of guilt for being the one responsible for chasing away the calm and quiet of the morning. “I don’t want you goin’ in there, if Ross gets you I don’t know what I’d do. Please, Harry.”

Harry ached to hear the fear in his voice, to see it in every line of his body. “There’s no one better,” he said. “Other agents have their mission, we have ours. It just so happens that ours is to go after Ross.”

“And there’s _no one else_ who could do it?” Eggsy asked. He was gripping Harry’s hand now, looking up at him pleadingly. “Harry, I can’t lose you.”

 _And I would rather be here with you, making sure you’re alright, being able to come down here when you wake up with nightmares or just need someone to be around_ , Harry thought. But if taking down Ross could ensure the boy’s safety, would make it impossible for Ross to ever hurt him again, the parting would be worth it. With luck, if everything went smoothly, it would only take a day.

“I’ll come back,” Harry said. He held back from making a promise; promises to life weren’t things Kingsman agents could be expected to keep, and if something happened and he couldn’t keep the promise, the boy didn’t need to be hurt any more than he already had been.

“You have to come back,” Eggsy said fiercely. “You have to.” And then he was scared again. “Do you have to go?”

“I’m a Kingsman,” Harry said gently. “It’s my duty.”

“Shit,” Merlin said suddenly through the glasses. “Harry, I’m sorry to break this up, but you and Roxy need to get over here now.”

Immediately, Harry was on his feet. “On my way.”

“What is it?” Eggsy demanded. “Is everything alright?”

“Just something Merlin said I should see,” Harry said. It wasn’t a lie. “I’ll try to be back soon.”

“No guarantees of that,” Merlin said as Harry headed out of Eggsy’s room and towards Merlin’s office. “We need to meet and figure out what to do based on what I’ve found with the handy little password Eggsy gave us, and you won’t like it. Until you get here, here’s a bit of a preview: Ross was killing people for their money, yes, but if that’s not bad enough, it turns out he wants to take out governments and, well, to put it rather bluntly, rule the world.”

“ _What_?” Roxy exclaimed. “Is that even possible?”

Merlin sounded worried. “I don’t know. But I’ve looked at his records that he has saved on here, and there’s one that I haven’t had time to do more than just scan over yet but the gist of it seems to be that he is enormously against all of the wars that are happening around the world, and he plans to stop it all by uniting everyone under one government, which, apparently, he plans to be the head of. And it seems that he’s willing to do anything to do that, including take down existing governments who he feels wouldn’t agree with him. I don't know if that's in any way practical or if it's even possible at all, but he will certainly try."

“That doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what he’s been doing,” Harry said with a frown. “Killing innocent people and, well, yes, taking their money, but nothing really to do with governments. He hasn’t killed anyone who is in a position of great political power.”

“See, at first glance I would agree with you,” Merlin said, and Harry could hear him typing away at his computer. “But I’ve looked at the trends for all cases we believe are tied to Garlon – well, tied to Ross – and it seems to be that all of the families killed in one area were wealthy and influential, but most importantly, they publicly – or even privately, through money – supported someone who was already in a position of power in the government. Wealthy and influential individuals in the same area who wanted someone _else_ in office, usually from the opposing political party, were unharmed, and the killings in the same area stopped as soon as there was a major shift in the political party in power. We’d noticed a bit of this before, but we never thought it was more than coincidence.”

“And what about places without killings? If I remember the maps correctly, there are some entire countries where we’ve found no red flags,” Roxy said.

Through the glasses, Harry heard doors open from both Roxy and Merlin’s ends and assumed she had just reached his office.

“Right,” Merlin was saying. “Countries like Switzerland, Iceland, New Zealand…pretty much everyone who’s been historically peaceful has been spared of anything that looks like it could be Ross’s interference. I assume they stayed safe because Ross liked the politics of who was already in power, and they’ve been the ones who have stayed in power – or at least have upheld the same values as their predecessors – for the duration of the time we know Ross has been operating. If this is true, it means Ross has been playing with global politics for years.”

Harry cursed. He’d reached Merlin’s office and he pushed open the door; Roxy was indeed already there, and Merlin spun his computer screen around as Harry entered the room.

“Look at this,” Merlin said. “Plans for what seems to be a self-sustaining bunker or safehouse, with plans to resist nuclear warfare. I’m assuming that after the part of the plan involving getting people to kill for him, this is where the rest of the wealth Ross stole went towards. Now see this here – this is the only entrance he has mapped out, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a back exit he didn’t tell anyone about. But the entrance is marked with an arrow pointing to something labelled ‘processing,’ and it seems to be located in the building he has in Chamonix, or at least is connected to it.”

“Which means Ross is most likely there,” Roxy said. “He’ll want to stay sheltered, and even if it’s not complete, it will still offer protection in case of ambush which Eggsy said he’s always so paranoid about.”

“Eggsy talked about storage or processing rooms,” Harry remembered suddenly. “Located all around the compound. Ross would get shipments in the middle of each month, and they would go into those rooms. He made it sound as if no one was allowed in there, and security around the compound was increased until the shipments for the month had all come in. I’ll take my chances that the entrance to his bunker is in one of those.”

“There’s a shipment due for the end of this week,” Merlin said, pulling up a document. “And the Monday and Wednesday after that, and then there aren’t any more until the third week of October.”

Roxy made a noise of irritation. “So given the security question, we’ll need to wait until after next Wednesday if we have a chance of getting in without being caught. Even if what Eggsy said was true, that Ross’s agents weren’t allowed to communicate with each other except in person or on missions, there’s no telling of Ross changed that as a precaution since knowing that we got Eggsy.” She paused. “Actually, there’s no telling if _anything_ of what he said still holds true. It’s been a month; that’s plenty of time for him to change things around.”

Merlin passed a hand over his face and made a noise of frustration. “Which is incredibly unfortunate, given that this mission is now much higher priority than we thought. At least that gives us some more time to plan things, and more time for me to study these documents. What _would_ be useful is if we could get something out of whoever it was Eggsy saw typing in this password.”

“I’ll ask him,” Harry said. “Eggsy said he didn’t recognize him, but perhaps he could give us a description, or any other way we could identify him. Until then, is there anything we could get from who’s sending him these shipments, or anything you can find on the people who helped him build everything?”

“No.” Merlin shook his head. “The shipments come from large companies that don’t ask any questions, and seeing as the materials he’s been ordering seem harmless enough, there has never been any need for them to question anything. Not to mention that he rotates between several different companies if he needs to make repeat orders for things. There’s also nothing on who he had build everything for him.”

Roxy cursed. “He covers his tracks well. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if he got several different teams to put things together, so no one person or company knows everything.”

Harry made a noise of agreement. “But we can try to map out areas in the main complex that are likely to be connected to a bunker. Is there a floor plan to the compound itself?”

Merlin shook his head. “Strangely, no, I didn’t find one. All we have to go on is what Eggsy drew us, and let’s hope it’s accurate. Here.” He clicked around on the computer until he pulled up a scanned image of the napkin Eggsy had drawn the plan on. “Thought it’d be safer to digitalize it.”

“It might not be to scale, but he has a brilliant memory,” Roxy said. “Even if the distances aren’t completely accurate, I think the relative locations will be, including the number of doors and hallways.”

“There are bound to be safeguards in place,” Harry said. “If we could access tech first, Merlin, would you be able to get into the servers and figure out how to hack through his security?”

“Or potentially even figure out where all of the info is going,” Roxy added. “Ross has to able to get visual, audio, and location feeds from all of his agents whenever he wants, and that must be somehow wired up to a mainframe that he has access to. Any way to track it and find out where he is once we’re in the compound?”

Merlin looked thoughtful. “That might work, actually. He must be getting some sort of signal at some computer, wherever he is, and if there’s a signal I should be able to track it. But I don’t know much about his operating system, and if things are encrypted or he has other safeguards in place that we haven’t thought of I’d need to figure my way around it. I’d need as much time as I could get, which means you would need to get me into their system first thing after you get into the compound.”

“That’s tech over there,” Roxy said, pointing to an area of the compound that was sectioned off and labeled. “A bit far from the entrance, which Ross probably planned to avoid anyone being able to accomplish exactly what we’re saying, but it’s doable. If you can get us a bit more in terms of codes and getting through initial security, we’ll get you into the system.”

“Tech,” Harry said suddenly. “The man typing in the password – if this man knew the password, he’s likely to be closely connected to Ross, and if he’s able to view these documents and Eggsy didn’t recognize him, he likely works in a different department. Eggsy suggested tech.”

Merlin suddenly looked troubled. “What was Eggsy doing in tech?” he muttered.

“He said it looked like something he wasn’t supposed to see,” Harry said. “He never claimed to have seen this in the tech area, although it would make sense that someone working in tech would be there. He said agents weren’t allowed to go anywhere without explicit permission from Ross.”

Merlin frowned. “So what was _he_ doing wandering around and seeing something he wasn’t supposed to see? Wouldn’t Ross have been able to follow his movements with that tracker?”

“Unless he was where he was supposed to be, and this tech guy wasn’t,” Roxy suggested.

“We need to find out who it was,” Merlin said. “Something about this doesn’t sit right with me. Eggsy saw something he wasn’t meant to see, which means that either he or this other person wasn’t where they were supposed to be. And somehow, this managed to escape Ross’s attention – unless, of course, this is something he planned all along.”

Harry’s heart thudded dully in his chest. “You mean a trap,” he said.

Eggsy hadn’t wanted him to go. Was that because he didn’t want Harry to get hurt on a potentially dangerous mission, or was it because he knew something else that he wasn’t telling them?

No. Eggsy wouldn’t betray him.

But on the other hand, what if he _had_ just been biding his time? What if he knew he couldn’t take Harry down alone in that old abandoned parking lot? What if he knew before heading out on his mission that he needed to have a backup plan? If he couldn’t take Kingsman down by himself, he’d let Kingsman take him, he’d gain Harry’s trust and the trust of enough of the rest of Kingsman that they would act on his information, and the whole time Ross would know what Kingsman would find out and prepare accordingly.

They’d walk in, confident that they knew enough to take Ross out, when all the while Ross would know that they were coming, he would know what Kingsman would do based on the information he knew Eggsy would have told them, and they’d walk straight into his hands.

 _No_ , Harry thought fiercely. Eggsy wouldn’t do that. Eggsy was very much his father’s son, and his father had been willing to lay down his life to do good.

His father had, in fact, quite literally laid down his life to do good.

Roxy muttered a low curse. “It makes sense,” she said, and she sounded troubled. “But…I don’t know. I feel like we don’t have enough of the story to make any judgments right now.”

“Whatever it ends up being, we need to go in soon,” Merlin said. “We can’t afford to wait much longer; we’ve already waited a month. Ross has already made a move on us, and who’s to say when he’ll make another even if we lay low. If we let him get confident, he’ll kill again.”

“So we move forward,” Harry said. Eggsy couldn’t be lying to him. He couldn’t be willingly setting Kingsman up, letting them all walk to their deaths.

Nightmares like what he’d seen couldn’t be faked.

“We move forward,” Merlin agreed with a sigh. “Although, Harry, it would be greatly appreciated if you could find out some more details on Eggsy’s side of the story once you head back there, and what exactly happened when he saw this password. There’s something missing here.”

“I’ll do my best,” Harry said.

“Right. Thank you, Harry. Now until then, let’s look at what we’ve got, assume that what we see here is accurate and up-to-date, and hope Ross doesn’t know we’ve gotten into his system.”

“What is this system, anyway?” Roxy asked. She was sitting on the corner of Merlin’s desk now, and her feet dangled off the edge. “It’s not any cloud storage I’ve seen before.”

“It might be something he created,” Merlin said. “I’ve dug around too, and it’s not something on public market. If he’s been killing and stealing from wealthy families for so long, and if he has the money and manpower that Eggsy claims, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had people who are able to create a new system of cloud storage just for him, something that couldn’t be hacked into and something private that other people didn’t know about so no investigation could be done.”

Roxy looked at Harry. “Is this something we tell Eggsy?”

“No,” Harry said almost immediately. “He said he didn’t want to know what you found.”

“I don’t fully trust him, either,” Merlin muttered. “Look,” he said, when Harry opened his mouth to protest, “I get that he gave us all of this, and I get why he said he was forced into doing what he did. I know what he went through – at least, I know what you told me. But it’s a strange thing, Harry, when someone goes through what he did for so long. Habits die hard, and so does trauma. Not to mention this whole situation where Ross was somehow able to overlook at least one of his agents being out of place at such a crucial time.”

Harry clenched his jaw. It was hard to hear, but he knew Merlin had a point. No matter how much he wanted to trust Eggsy, and no matter how much it hurt to doubt him, they had to at least consider even the smallest possibility that Ross had won Eggsy’s loyalty over, and that Eggsy knew how Ross would react to Kingsman having gotten one of his agents and he was giving them all of this information so they could walk into a trap.

They all knew Eggsy’s loyalty was a powerful thing. The question that remained now was who it was to.

And yet, Eggsy had called him _love_ as he lay dying in the back of that cab. Eggsy had struggled through weeks of nightmares on end, and was still willing to give Kingsman everything he had.

Eggsy had been tortured.

Harry refused to believe that a boy who had been willing to get run over by a train before he would give up secrets of an organization he hadn’t even belonged to yet, a boy who had been willing to get punched in the face by his stepfather and threatened with a butcher knife instead of give up the name of a stranger he had just met, would be willing to give up Kingsman to a man who had tortured him, who had threatened his family.

Harry and Roxy stayed in Merlin’s office for the next few hours, looking through as many of Ross’s extensive number of documents as they could and formulating a primitive plan. Fortunately, other than skimping on a map of the actual compound itself, Ross was meticulous; he had kept a record of all of the security codes he had in place, as well as the dates they were last updated, as well as detailed plans for his bunker, profiles of past and potential future victims, and, Harry noted with a sudden pounding of his heart, detailed records of each of his six hundred agents.

“Eggsy,” Harry said hoarsely, pointing to a folder that said A597-3.

Merlin hesitated. “Harry –”

“Click on it,” Harry said, and his palms were sweating, his heart throbbing hard and fast. It didn’t matter that Merlin and Roxy couldn’t be completely certain about Eggsy’s loyalty or the quality of what he had told him, despite all appearances he presented otherwise. What mattered now was that Eggsy was a boy Harry loved more than anything else in the world, and in that folder lay all of the information on what Ross had done to him.

Everything Ross had done to break him.

“Are you sure?”

“Click on it,” Harry repeated, and he felt Roxy reach out and take his hand.

Merlin clicked on the folder, and dozens and dozens of files popped up – over a hundred. Harry realized with a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach that one hundred forty-seven of them were videos, each of which was labelled with a date, each of which was several hours long.

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t expected, but it hurt nevertheless.

Harry took a few deep, shaky breaths. He saw Merlin stiffen, saw the horror that crossed his face as he, just as Harry, realized the extent of what Eggsy had gone through.

“It’s real,” Roxy said, and she sounded stunned. As if she’d always understood the possibility that the video they’d all seen hadn’t been faked, but that she’d never expected to have to face the stark reality of the truth. She’d never expected to have to face the fact that her best friend had been tortured for one hundred forty-seven days on end and that no one had known.

“I’ll kill him,” Harry said.

Roxy glanced at him, and Harry knew she saw that he wasn’t surprised to see what was on the screen in front of them, knew that she saw that it hurt him, but that he’d expected it.

“This is why,” she said softly. “This is why you don’t believe he’s still working for Ross. All this time, I thought it was just…I trusted your judgment, Harry, I always did. Please never think that I don’t. But I thought…I thought your feelings might have…” She trailed off, exhaling sharply through her nose. “But you knew about this.”

Harry closed his eyes briefly, tried to control the shaking in his voice. “Do you see why I don’t believe he can go back to Ross? The video was real, Merlin, he wasn’t faking it. What we saw in the video – he went through that, for hours every day, for one hundred forty-seven days in a row without a break. I refuse to think he can be loyal to the man who did that to him.”

Merlin was silent. He stared almost blankly at the screen.

“Kay told me,” Harry said. “As he was coming out of surgery. He told me Eggsy had scars that resembled those of someone who was…who was tortured.” He swallowed and tried to steady his voice. “I didn’t know the extent of it any more than anyone else did, I just knew about it a little earlier. I didn’t know that it was this long.”

_One hundred forty-seven days in a row, more than four hours per day. And that’s just what Ross recorded._

Harry’s blood ran hot in his veins.

“Alright. That’s enough,” Merlin said quietly, finally, and closed the tab. Roxy gave Harry’s hand a gentle squeeze, her thumb rubbing circles into his skin.

“Hours,” Harry whispered. “ _Hours_ , Merlin.”

“Let’s get back to the mission, alright?” Roxy said gently. “Eggsy’s here, safe, because of you. He’ll never have to go through that again. Especially if we’re able to take Ross down.”

“I’ll kill him,” Harry said.

“I know,” Merlin said. “But we need to figure out what we’re going to do first. And…alright. We need to trust Eggsy,” he said, his voice heavy. “At least, trust him enough to bank on the ideas that the map of the complex he gave us is correct, and that the password to these documents is actually Ross’s password and not just something he planted. We need to trust that there is some truth to what we’ve found out, otherwise we’ve got nothing and nowhere to start, and the world is running out of time. The videos…they can’t be faked. Not something like that.” He was staring hard ahead now, unable to meet Harry’s eyes, and Harry knew Merlin was remembering just as much of Eggsy’s screams as he was. Just as much as Roxy was.

“And if there are so many of them…what Eggsy gave us must be real and legitimate,” Merlin continued, “even if there are some pieces missing, even if we can’t be completely sure that we won’t be walking into a trap. But it would be helpful, Harry, if you could try and figure out those missing pieces.”

Harry nodded, pushing down the dread that came with the thought of once again bringing up memories that he knew Eggsy would rather not think about. But the more information they had and the faster they got it, the better their chances of success when they went in to Ross’s complex. With Ross dead and his network taken down, hopefully Eggsy would heal a little better.

“Good.” Merlin’s voice was steadier now. “Until then, what we need to do is to take what we have and come up with a preliminary plan to make sure we do everything we can to avoid a trap. Harry, I see what you’re saying, and part of me agrees with you, and part of me still wants to stay cautious. But…I think this is a chance we need to take.”

“We’ve waited long enough already,” Roxy agreed quietly. “And every passing day gives Ross more time to prepare for us.”

“Exactly,” Merlin said. “And that’s the danger. Him knowing that he successfully bombed one of our outposts and then not hearing from us for a while will, hopefully, have encouraged him to back off of us a bit, thinking that he finished us, and hopefully this will give us a bit more time. But we can’t wait any longer. We need to go in as soon as that last shipment does.”

Four more hours were spent going through documents and adding to the preliminary plan. They would move in on the Saturday after the last shipment would be delivered; hopefully by then, with all expected shipments in, the security would relax a little, and hopefully, with the help of the codes they had found in Ross’s cloud storage, they would be able to get past whatever security was left. The files of each of the agents also contained their handprints, which Ross no doubt had on file for use in biometric security, and Merlin and the rest of the tech team would work on ways to bypass the biometrics, whether through remotely hacking Ross’s system or coming up with some physical piece of tech that could fool the scanner. Knowledge of the schedule the complex operated on as well as its layout was essential; Harry and Roxy were to study it extensively before they officially headed out on the mission. With luck, they would be able to get in, locate Ross by getting Merlin into the system to track him, kill him, and blow the whole thing up.

The last part was the part they were all the most uncomfortable with, despite years of Kingsman training and experience in the field, despite each of them having taken lives before. There was always a possibility that Ross tortured every single one of his other agents into doing his bidding just as he had tortured Eggsy and that none of them actually wanted to be there, but there was also a possibility – a very likely possibility – that at least some of his agents were doing his work willingly.

Kingsman didn’t have the time to go through all of the footage Ross had to figure out which agents were likely to be innocent people Ross had caught and which were likely to have immediately agreed with Ross and unwaveringly sided with him, nor would they have the time to question all of Ross’s agents they would encounter in the complex once they got there. Even if they did, they didn’t have the resources to take so many people into custody. So if it came down to innocent lives being lost, well. It gave Harry a sick feeling in his gut, but there was no other option. They didn’t have the manpower to take everyone hostage, but they couldn’t risk anyone escaping the complex for fear that it might actually be Ross.

As twisted and cruel as it sounded, they had to act for the greater good, and make the decision that no one else could make.

Such was the life of a Kingsman.

 

 

 

“I’m going with you,” Eggsy said, as soon as Harry slipped back into his room more than eight hours after he’d left it. It was nearly lights out for the rest of non-emergency Medical, and Harry had wanted to stop by and say goodnight if the boy was still awake.

“You’re not,” Harry said firmly. “And you should be resting.”

“I _am_ resting,” Eggsy said, gesturing to the bed he was lying on. But there was a slight tremble to his voice that the lightness of his words couldn’t match, and Harry knew he was scared.

“I mean sleeping,” Harry said, with a fond and slightly exasperated smile.

Eggsy shrugged. “I’m going with you,” he said again, and under the anxiety there was something hard in his voice. “I have every right to go with you. It was my family he locked up and held at gunpoint for two years. It was me he hurt again and again until I finally listened to him. It was me who fucked everythin’ up, so if anyone should be riskin’ their life going in there, it’s me. An’ I know the place better than any of you.”

 _Do you_? Harry thought, thinking about the files he’d seen. _Do you really know it as well as you think you do? Do you know that there are things you couldn’t have known about what Ross was doing?_

“I won’t slow you down,” Eggsy continued, and Harry could hear the slight tremble in his voice, could feel the shake in his fingertips as he sat down next to the boy’s bed and took his hand. “I promise, I won’t slow you down, and I won’t…I won’t let any of what I see get to me. I can do it, yeah? I was an agent too, Harry, I know what it takes to make a mission work. An’ I promise you, you’ll do better if I’m there. Because I might not know who Ross really is or what he really looks like, but neither do you, and I know how he works. I’ll know what to do if somethin’ goes wrong and we need to make a split-second decision based on my time back there, and that’s not the kind of shit I can explain to you or that you could learn in a few days.”

“You could get hurt,” Harry said, rather bluntly. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.” _Or killed. I couldn’t bear the thought of living if you died there. And where would the world be then, when we fail the mission? What would Ross be allowed to do then, without Kingsman to bring him down?_

He knew what he was thinking didn’t make sense. Kingsman would continue to operate with or without him, with or without Eggsy. The organization didn’t rest on his shoulders alone, just as the world didn’t rest on Kingsman’s shoulder’s alone.

But the world would be bleak without Eggsy. Harry had already caught a glimpse of what a world without Eggsy would be like, when the boy had lain in the back of the car, bleeding out into the seats and all over Harry’s hands, each heartbeat, every coordinated contraction of cardiac muscle which was designed to keep him alive, instead ticking away the minutes he had to live.

The world had been gray, then. Gray and dusty and grainy, like static, like emptiness. Like anything and everything had suddenly ceased to exist – color, light, happiness, hope – and even things that were shit. Sorrow, pain, anger, suffering.

Eggsy’s light had nearly gone out, and it had brought the whole world with it.

Harry never wanted to see that again. It was selfish and thoughtless and cruel, but when it came time for either of them to die, Harry promised himself that he would die first.

“You can’t keep me here,” Eggsy said, with a small, wry smile and a glance at Harry. His eyes glinted green, brighter than they had been the past few weeks with a touch of amusement. Fondness, rather than pain, despite the anxiety underneath. And Harry felt his heart soar with it.

“You can’t keep me boxed in this place,” Eggsy continued, and the same small, wry smile was still playing at the corners of his lips. “Don’t forget that I spent months here. I know this building is designed to keep people out, but not necessarily to keep people in. Especially people who know their way around and who are spies. An’ I was a bloody good recruit, too,” he added, his smile widening a little bit. “You know I could sneak out of here if I really tried.” And then, abruptly, he was serious. “So I’m comin’ with you, Harry,” he said. “Whether you want me to or not. If you’re goin’ in, I’m not lettin’ you go in alone. I’ll find my own way to fuckin’ Chamonix if I need to. Don’t make me.”

 _I could sedate you. Order the nurses to keep you under until I get back_. If _I get back_.

No.

He had to get back.

“I want to see Ross dead,” Eggsy said bluntly. “And you can’t afford to wait to bring him back here. You know that every moment that passes while he’s alive in your hands increases the chances that he’ll somehow escape, and you can’t risk that. You’ll be killin’ him on-site. So you might as well just say it now and let me come with you.”

“We can talk about this in the morning,” Harry said. He didn’t want to deal with this right now; he didn’t want to argue with Eggsy when Eggsy had a point – he had every right to be the one to kill Ross, considering what the man had put him through. He had every right to want the man dead, every right to want to see it for himself to be able to believe it. And he was right when he said that Kingsman would be killing the man on the spot. They couldn’t risk him getting away, so there would be no chance of them bringing him back to HQ.

But Harry – and Kingsman – couldn’t afford to bring someone along who was injured, someone who was still dealing with the trauma and psychological repercussions of what he would be going back to face. If Eggsy pulled at his wounds during the mission, or if he was triggered by something and went into a flashback, or, God forbid, he walked into the complex and some switch flipped in his mind and he became A597-3 again, it wasn’t something Kingsman would be equipped to handle on top of trying to find Ross amidst six hundred of his other agents, who would no doubt be instructed to kill them on sight, or at the very least capture them.

The bottom line was, if Eggsy was in trouble, Harry refused to go anywhere without getting him out, and Merlin and Roxy knew this. All of Kingsman knew this. Harry would be willing to jeopardize the mission if it meant Eggsy’s safety, even if it was as A597-3.

They couldn’t bring someone along who might hold them back.

Not to mention the parts of the narrative that didn’t line up, and the fact that Kingsman could be walking into a trap that Eggsy may or may not know about. Their trust in the boy was superficial at best, and based solely on the necessity to act quickly.

“You have questions,” Eggsy said, when several minutes had passed without either of them speaking, without Harry making any moves to get up and leave and wait to talk about it in the morning as he’d said. “You saw somethin’ in whatever it was you were loggin’ into, and now you don’t trust me.”

Harry winced; the words stung, and sounded harsh to his ears. “It’s not that,” he said, and he chose his next words carefully. “It’s not that we don’t trust you – we do. _I_ do. It’s simply that some things don’t quite line up with…with what we know, based on what you’ve told us. There are some parts to it that we feel are missing, whether it’s because you haven’t mentioned them or simply because you don’t know.”

Eggsy’s gaze shifted to the wall in front of him. “Ask away.”

“It’s late,” Harry began.

“Just ask me, Harry,” Eggsy said. “I know you can’t afford to spend much more time on this case than what you already have. So just tell me, Harry, what do you need to know?”

“Eggsy –”

“Look, Harry, I wasn’t plannin’ on sleepin’ now anyway. I figure you weren’t either, so why don’t we both make productive use of this time and get you whatever information you need to catch this son of a bitch.”

Harry hesitated, and then nodded. “Alright.” He pulled up the chair against the wall next to Eggsy’s bed; the boy sat up, crossing his legs in front of him, and despite the bravado of his words looking at Harry slightly apprehensively.

“It’s about the password you gave us,” Harry began, and he didn’t miss the way Eggsy shrank back a little at his words, his gaze shifting away from Harry’s face. “That whole situation, really. You said you didn’t recognize the person who was typing it in, but were there any identifying things you could tell us? Anything that could help us know who it is?”

“A329-0,” Eggsy said immediately, and the response was almost automatic. “We had uniforms. We always had to wear them unless we were on a mission an’ hey all had our numbers on ‘em.”

“Did you see what he looked like?” Harry asked.

Eggsy hesitated. “I never saw his face,” he said. “I just…he was facin’ away from me, I saw his hands is all.” He paused, frowned. “No, I…I saw his hair. He had light brown hair,” Eggsy said. “Same cut as everyone else. So like mine, I guess – a little shorter, actually, since mine is longer now than Ross would’ve liked it. An’ he was pale, from what I could see of the side of his face, didn’t look like he’d seen the sun much. On the thin side but…he didn’t look short or anythin’, just…a bit like you, Harry, I guess,” Eggsy said uncertainly. “He had a mole on his left hand, right about here.” He pointed at the first knuckle on his left ring finger, and paused. “I don’t…I don’t really remember anythin’ else about ‘im. I just…I saw the password, and I knew that it was something that I shouldn’t have seen, so I…I left. I didn’t want to get into any trouble.”

And this was the part where it had stopped lining up. “How did you know it was something you weren’t supposed to see?”

“Well – because it was a password,” Eggsy said, as if it were obvious, and Harry thought Ross must have kept strict rules about his agents keeping their heads down and not asking too many questions. “An’ it wasn’t anythin’ Ross had told me, an’ if he hadn’t told me about it then it wasn’t somethin’ I was supposed to know, or probably even know about. But it felt weird, because I know Ross has tech guys but they’re always in the tech wing, and this guy…wasn’t.”

As they’d thought – one of them hadn’t been where they were supposed to be.

“How do you know he was tech?” Harry asked.

“His number,” Eggsy said, and his voice was hard now, his jaw clenching.

“Number?” Harry asked cautiously. “Were they organized in a particular way?”

Eggsy’s jaw tightened. “Yeah. Ross is…systematic. I never really knew for sure how he…how he numbered us. Not exactly, anyway, or any of the details. But you kind of figure it out, you know, after you’ve been there a while, especially if the system is organized. Everythin’ from A001 to around A299 seemed to be somethin’ to do with field work, but more like…more like foot soldiers. At least, that’s the type of person everyone I met was who had a number in that range. Dangerous, of course, but the…the recruiting standards seemed lower.

“The 300’s were all in tech; I’d never seen ‘em outside of tech, unless there was somethin’ that needed repairin’ somewhere else, an’ I never saw ‘em in my section. They were the ones who get the money from the bank accounts of all of Ross’s targets, but they worked with developing physical technology as well. Other than Kingsman’s tech department, judging by the tech and weapons that Ross had, some of the brightest minds I’d ever seen were in there. So I guess they’re just a group of engineers and weapons designers and hackers and programmers all put into one section to work together an’ be the backbone of the place.

“The 400’s were mostly medical people, I think. I don’t know much about them since I only saw about six of ‘em my whole time there. Ross’s agents didn’t get many injuries – if they did, they were dead. Atkins knew that. We all knew that. So I figure they were the ones that did all the menial work, too, then. Y’know, stuff like cookin’, bringin’ food to the assets in their rooms, bringin’ stuff to the wash, scrubbin’ the floors.

“An’ then there were the – the 500’s. Me.” He stopped, taking a deep breath.

“We were Ross’s favorites,” Eggsy said bitterly. “His best assets. The most skilled. If the rest of them were anythin’ like me, he trusted them on solo missions, he trusted them to supervise and lead missions with others, usually all in the first three hundred. He wanted them on the big missions. Either that, or we’d be the ones watchin’ over the friends and families of Ross’s newest assets, the ones he wasn’t completely sure of yet. He had us all watchin’ each other, really; I knew there was someone on my back the moment I went out on my first solo mission, which was – which was actually to take out someone else who he thought might betray him. I figured he had this whole complicated thing going on where everyone was always bein’ watched by someone else, and everyone was always watchin’ someone else. I was watchin’ A238-2. Atkins. That’s why I shot him.”

Eggsy stopped. His gaze was fixed on the wall over Harry’s shoulder, and he looked angry, disgusted. He’d said more than what Harry had asked for, but Harry didn’t want to stop him. If Eggsy wanted to talk, Harry would let him.

“The 500’s were the best,” Eggsy said, after a while. “Ross’s elite. If everyone else was the rest of the army, the 500’s were the Captain Americas, except doin’ dirty and shitty work instead of tryin’ to uphold freedom and justice. They – well, we – lived separately from the rest, even though we were all already ordered by number in the rooms. We didn’t get any more privileges than anyone else, except Ross’s trust and extra attention, I suppose, but I still ain’t sure if that’s a good thing. But A329-0 was there, in our section, where tech never goes, because, well, no one is allowed there unless it’s to deliver food or our washed uniforms or stuff like that. That’s how I knew he was in the wrong place, that he wasn’t supposed to be there.” He paused. “I wondered if he was like me, wantin’ to get out of there, or at least wantin’ to do anythin’ he could to get someone else out of there. I wonder if he let me see that password on purpose.”

“So you don’t know what he was doing there either,” Harry said.

Eggsy shook his head. “No. An’ I see why you don’t trust me; you think it’s a trap. An’ I get that, honest. I wouldn’t trust me either. But for what it’s worth, I’ve told you the truth.”

“I trust you,” Harry said quietly, after a while.

“So let me come with you,” Eggsy said, and his voice was almost pleading. “I promise, I ain’t gonna let any of what I see bother me. I won’t hold you back. I just…I can’t stand the thought of you goin’ in there alone. I’m…I’m too scared of losin’ you, Harry.”

“We’ll figure it out in the morning,” Harry murmured. He dared to reach out and take the boy’s hand and give it a gentle squeeze. “I’ll talk to Merlin and Roxy, and we’ll figure something out. Just…know that we’ll get him. We won’t stop until we do. And I promise, regardless of what happens, I’ll do my best to be safe.”

 

 

 

Harry met with Merlin and Roxy first thing the next morning as promised. Harry told them everything Eggsy had told him, and the general consensus seemed to be that everything seemed to hold up. Merlin was still cautious, as Harry had expected, but after what he had seen in Ross’s files yesterday Harry knew he also found it increasingly difficult to believe that Eggsy could still be loyal to Ross.

The question remained, ten, whether or not they should allow Eggsy to come with them.

“He has a right,” Roxy said, somewhat reluctantly, and Harry knew that she would rather have Eggsy stay in HQ, where they knew he would be safer. “He has, actually, _every_ right to want to come on the mission. We can’t ignore that he was the one Ross hurt. We can’t ignore the very real possibility that he wants revenge, or at the very least that he’ll want reassurance that Ross is truly dead. Reassurance that he’ll only get from being there to see it in person. And he does make a point about knowing the complex and the operation more thoroughly than we could ever hope to in the – what, one week, before we head in? We can’t ignore that having him with us could be enormously beneficial to making sure that this whole thing goes smoothly.”

“But we can’t ignore that it could also go extremely wrong,” Harry pointed out. “We all know how difficult it would be for him, and despite what he says, we can’t know that he won’t be affected. If he freezes at the wrong moment, if he hesitates too long, it could all go tits up. And even without considering the success of the mission, I don’t want him to get hurt.”

“And yet, I doubt we could keep him locked up here,” Merlin said wryly, a bit of a sardonic smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “I’m sure he’s already talked to you about this, Harry, but he knows the place. And he’s a trained spy. The only way you’d be able to keep him here is if you station several of our own agents around him at all times, or if you sedate him, neither of which I think you’re willing to do.”

“I don’t want him to feel like a prisoner,” Harry muttered. And he didn’t want to imagine the look of hurt and betrayal on the boy’s face when he realized Harry had sedated him, even if it was to keep him safe.

There was a silence.

“Whatever we decide to do, it’s taking a chance,” Roxy said. “I suppose it’s just a question of which one we’re more willing to take. I, for one…” She broke off, shaking her head, giving Harry an almost pitying look. “I, for one, think it would be helpful to have someone around who really does know the place. I’m sorry, Harry, I want him safe just as much as you do. But I think we really do have a better chance at finding Ross if he’s there with us.”

“You – what?”

“I think he should come with us,” Roxy repeated, and she held his gaze evenly even as the shock of her words hit him, even as anger simmered up inside him. “I know you’re tired of hearing this, Harry, and I know you know it just as well as the rest of us, but we’re Kingsman agents for a reason. No matter how hard it may be. If we’re to have the best chance at finding Ross and bringing him down and stopping all of the _shit_ he’s pulling around the world, we need someone who was on the inside. Someone who knows what’s going on, someone who knows his way around. We need him there with us.”

“He could stay behind and watch through the monitors,” Harry retorted; he felt betrayed. He’d thought Roxy would side with him, want Eggsy to stay behind, keep him out of danger. She had been his best friend – surely she loved him, just as Harry did? Surely she wanted to keep her best friend safe?

But – no. Roxy was brilliant, but she wasn’t brilliant for nothing. She could be cold when she needed to be; he’d known that. They’d all know that. When they were going after Garlon, they’d all known that she wouldn’t have hesitated to take Harry down if it meant the mission would run more smoothly. If it meant they would have had to leave Eggsy behind to die.

And now, she knew they had to risk Eggsy’s safety for the sake of the rest of the world.

 _The greater good_.

“The monitors,” Harry repeated, and it sounded pathetic even to himself. “They’re not set up for no reason, we don’t keep Merlin behind monitors for no reason.”

“It’s not the same,” Merlin said quietly. “Roxy has a point. If something does go wrong and I lose contact with you, I would feel better knowing you had someone with you who really knows their way around. Someone who’s been there before.”

Harry clenched his jaw; he could feel tension spiking, a pounding headache starting at his temples. He knew he couldn’t argue against the benefit of having Eggsy there in person, in the case that something went wrong, in the case that they had to make a split-second decision based on something that none of them except Eggsy knew about, especially if they did lose contact with Merlin. If Ross knew they were coming, it was very possible – almost likely – that he’d set up ways to cut off any contact they had with a handler.

But maybe Ross wouldn’t be able to predict that they would bring Eggsy along. Maybe that would be the advantage they needed.

At the same time, he didn’t know what he would do if Eggsy got hurt again. If, God forbid, Ross got his hands on him again, or if he –

No.

Eggsy couldn’t die.

 _I’m dying_ –

“Harry,” Merlin said quietly, and his voice jolted Harry out of his thoughts. “Harry, in the end…in the end, we need to do what needs to be done to take this man down. Whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes,” Harry repeated, faintly.

He knew there was nothing he could say that would convince them otherwise.

 

 

 

“You will stay behind me,” Harry said, almost fiercely, when he next went to see the boy to give him the news of their decision. He had moved back into the recruit dorms and had been kneeling on the ground, playing tug o’ war with JB when Harry had walked in.

“You’re lettin’ me come,” Eggsy said, and he sounded stunned. JB, oblivious to the gravity of what had just happened, growled and pulled the rope toy out of Eggsy’s grasp.

“It wasn’t my decision,” Harry muttered. He was angry, and frustrated, and terrified. The idea of the boy going back to Ross, back to the place he had been tortured, was never something he thought he’d have to think about, much less deal with. He was angry at the boy’s recklessness, at his bravery, at his _stupidity_ , for wanting to go back, even if it was only to keep Harry in his sight and to make sure he saw that Ross was dead.

He knew, despite his bravery, that the boy was scared, too.

He wished that were enough to make him want to stay.

“You will stay behind me,” Harry repeated. “ _Promise_ you’ll stay behind me and not do anything rash.”

Eggsy stood. “What kind of agent do you take me for?” he asked, with a quiet sort of amusement that softened the note of fear thrumming beneath his words, fear of going back to face the nightmare of the past two years. “Of course I ain’t gonna do anythin’ stupid.”

“Promise me, Eggsy,” Harry said.

“I –” Eggsy broke off; the smile faded from his face, and he held Harry’s gaze. His eyes flashed, bright green like emeralds. “I promise.”

“You will stay _safe_ ,” Harry said, still fierce. “You will do everything you can to stay safe, and alive, and away from Ross. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

Harry looked at him for a long few moments, fear and anxiety and pride and all of the other things he felt when he looked at the boy rushing through him, rising up in him like a storm and mixing together until he couldn’t tell them apart. He memorized the bright, angry, piercing green that was the boy’s eyes, the sharp line of his jaw, set in determination, even the hollows of his cheeks and the tension in his forearms that caused his fists to clench.

“You must promise me that you’ll make it back safely,” Harry said, and he couldn’t keep his voice from shaking, and he knew Eggsy heard it.

“Only if you do the same,” Eggsy said.

Harry tensed, swallowed. “You know I can’t make promises like that.”

“Then I can’t promise you either,” Eggsy returned immediately.

Another silence, spent watching each other.

“Alright,” Harry said finally. “I promise I’ll make it back safely.”

“Then I promise you too,” Eggsy said, matter-of-factly.

Harry clenched his jaw. It wasn’t that simple, and Eggsy knew that too. Even if promises could be made, even if those words were uttered with all the intention in the world of keeping them, they both knew there was no guarantee that they could.

“I love you,” Harry said abruptly, and he was still angry. Furious at the situation, that Eggsy had to be dragged back into this, that Kingsman had to risk Eggsy’s safety, even if they tried to justify it by saying that it would help save the world. “I love you dearly, Eggsy, and I couldn’t stand to see you get hurt. Not again.”

He saw the movement of Eggsy’s throat as he swallowed. “I’ll be alright,” he said. “I made a promise, didn’t I? So I gotta keep it.” He swallowed again, his gaze darting around the room, looking suddenly uncertain. “When do we leave?”

“It’s…slightly complicated right now,” Harry said. “Ross has documents. Dozens and dozens of them. We’ll need a few more days to read through them all even if we divide them up amongst us, and we do need to read through them all; we can’t risk missing anything that could be vital to the success of the mission. While that’s happening, Merlin also needs to come up with a way to bypass biometric security. He believes he has the information he needs to do so, but he still needs the time to develop it and test it. We can only finalize the details of the plan once those two things are done, and we can only carry out the mission itself when we believe Ross has relaxed his security enough that we have a chance of slipping in. We’re assuming, based on what you have told us and what we’ve seen from his documents, that this will happen after his next shipment, which is due to arrive next Wednesday.” He paused. “Long story short, we’re aiming for next Saturday.”

Eggsy took a deep, shuddering breath. “Right. Enough time for me to get back into everythin’, yeah?”

“Yes.” Harry hesitated. “How have you been doing, in terms of…”

“My recovery?” Eggsy asked, when Harry trailed off. His voice was quiet. “It’s alright. I’m doin’ better than they expected, they told me that earlier. An’ I feel fine, really. So don’t worry about me, I ain’t  gonna hold you up or nothin’.”

“That’s not what I was asking, and you know it,” Harry said softly.

A small smile tugged at the corners of Eggsy’s mouth. “I know,” he said.

“You’ll be wearing a Kingsman suit,” Harry said after a few more moments of silence, punctuated only by the sounds of JB chewing on his toy. “I…I still had it made, after…” He trailed off again. Once again, he thought of the fitting room, remembered the way Eggsy’s skin felt under his fingertips, the way the boy had shivered against his touch. He remembered how badly he had wanted to fuck Eggsy right then and there, the boy’s beautiful body exposed to him, lips plush and pink and slightly parted, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. Once again, he wondered if the boy was remembering the same thing, the same desire that had once sparked between them.

He saw surprise flicker across the boy’s face at his words, followed by something he couldn’t read, but he saw how Eggsy’s expression darkened, almost as if in shame, and he wondered if the boy felt like he didn’t deserve to wear the suit.

“You’ll have the glasses as well,” Harry said quietly. “Everything that we have, including…including weapons.”

Eggsy flinched back at that; the last time he’d held a weapon was when he’d been pointing a gun at Harry’s face, Harry realized. It was no wonder he drew back at the thought.

But he couldn’t go in there empty-handed. And Kingsman had to trust him while armed.

“I’ll do it,” Eggsy said. There was a tremor to his voice, but also determination.

“We’ll do our best to make sure you don’t have to use them,” Harry murmured, and he dared to step forward, dared to reach out and take Eggsy’s hand. He felt the boy’s fingers tighten in response, felt pride surge through him as the boy looked up and held his gaze again.

He would be alright. He had to be. He’d promised.

 

 

 

It took five more days to get through all of the rest of Ross’s documents and one day after that for Merlin to be satisfied with what he had come up with that would allow them to bypass the internal biometric scanners. His invention was, essentially, a spray of nanobots that were programmed to arrange themselves in the same pattern as one of Ross’s asset’s handprints, a pattern that the scanners would pick up and, hopefully, identify as someone allowed access.

The iris scanners were slightly more difficult. It took a larger team to come up with high-tech contact lenses that would not only replicate the color and patterns of one of Ross’s asset’s irises (the same assets Merlin had chosen for the handprint), but also mimic the function and movement of an actual eye so as to look as realistic as possible. Tests of both devices on Kingsman’s scanners confirmed that they both worked; they just had to hope that Ross’s scanners weren’t more advanced than theirs.

The next day, they finalized the plan. They would move in on Saturday as they had originally discussed, getting through the external security and heading straight for the tech room, where they would plug into the mainframe and get Merlin into the system. Eggsy hadn’t said anything about a guard rotation, but that didn’t mean Ross hadn’t decided to implement one in the weeks since he’d lost A597-3. They had to be prepared for anything.

Once Merlin was in, he would work as quickly as he could to locate a signal that could be sent to Ross; since none of the assets were allowed to initiate direct contact with Ross or each other, any new signal that popped up must be connected to Ross. Furthermore, since Ross always had access to each of his assets’ locations and visual feeds whenever he wanted, there must be several steady signals headed towards one location at any given time, several continuous streams of information, each of which would be headed to where Ross would access that information, and therefore, most likely, headed to Ross himself.

Once Merlin found where Ross was, which would hopefully take no more than a few minutes, Harry, Roxy, and Eggsy would head to the location, find Ross (or, if he wasn’t there, find out where he’d gone to), kill him, and blow up the complex on their way out.

“Get some sleep,” Merlin said, the night before, as they stood in the hall outside his office. Roxy had already gone home, and Eggsy had already retreated back to the dorms with JB.

“Right. Yes,” Harry murmured.

“I mean at _home_ ,” Merlin said, with a light sigh. “He’s fine, alright? His wounds have healed, all of the nurses and even Kay have confirmed that he’s alright to move around.”

“But they’re not happy that he’s going on a mission,” Harry retorted. “They know he’s not ready for that yet. As do you.”

“And we will do everything in our power to ensure that he doesn’t have to do more than walk,” Merlin said; his voice was firm. “He’ll be alright, Harry.”

Harry shook his head. “I’m staying here tonight.”

Merlin held his gaze for a long moment; the sun had gone down past the low hills of Kingsman grounds, and his eyes flashed in the light emitting from the lamps mounted on the walls. “Fine,” he said finally, his mouth set in a hard line. “You stay here. But I’m staying here too.”

“Merlin, you don’t –”

“Shut up, Harry,” Merlin said. There was a touch of amusement and fondness to his expression now. “I know I don’t need to. But if you’re set on staying here with him, then I’m staying here with you too. Solidarity, eh?” He chuckled. “But in all seriousness, if you don’t feel well enough to leave him here on his own, I wonder how much of that is _you_ not wanting to be on your own. And I don’t blame you, Harry. I don’t mean to psychoanalyze you, but I know what you’re dealing with.” His voice softened. “Just… _do_ get some sleep.”

Harry hesitated, and the nodded. “Yes. Thank you, Merlin.”

“Right. Goodnight then, Galahad.”

“Goodnight, Merlin.”

 

 

 

Nightmares, again, when his eyes drifted shut. Dreams of his worst fears coming true, of Eggsy falling under gunfire, of Ross’s hundreds of faceless assets dragging his limp, lifeless body as Harry was helpless to do anything except watch, of Eggsy bleeding out in front of him.

He dreamed that Eggsy, his stupid, brave boy, pushed him to the side again, took a bullet for him, a bullet that somehow, inexplicably, tore its way through the bulletproof Kingsman suit and burrowed its way into his chest, into his heart, where it exploded and tore him apart. Tore his life apart, sent bright red blood splattering over the walls, spilling onto the ground, soaking into Harry’s clothes and hot and bitter on his tongue.

 _No_ , he screamed in his sleep. _No, Eggsy, you can’t be dead, you promised me –_

He jerked awake.

“Merlin,” he gasped. He pressed a hand against his chest; his heart was pounding so wildly that it physically hurt him, the panic rising up and overwhelming him to the point of nausea. Somehow, he managed to find his glasses and press the button on the frame to turn them on. “Merlin, Eggsy –”

The light in the corner of the lens flickered and indicated that Merlin had connected.“What about him?” Merlin’s voice sounded groggy, and a moment later Harry heard him stifle a yawn.

“He – he’s alright?” He could barely choke out the words. He couldn’t forget the taste of the boy’s blood on his tongue, the feel of it over his hands and the memory of it crusted under his nails were no amount of soap and scrubbing could get it out.

“What –” Merlin stopped; Harry could almost hear his bewildered frown. “Yes, he’s alright, why?”

Harry’s chest was so tight that it felt like it had begun to cramp. The fear, the desperation surging through him left him helpless, left his mind in shambles, and he knew he should be able to trust Merlin’s judgment but he couldn’t bring himself to. He couldn’t think past that wall of _terror_ in his mind, that if he didn’t check immediately something would happen and Eggsy would die. “Can you please – can you check on him? Please, Merlin.”

“I – well, yes, I suppose so, just give me a moment…okay, yes, I’m looking at him now through the cameras; he’s fine. Sleeping soundly. Unlike you.”

 _He’s fine._ Harry’s breath left him in a shaky exhale. _It was a dream, it was only a dream. Eggsy’s okay._

Merlin yawned. “What’s up, Harry? You wake me up at four in the morning the day we’re supposed to go after Ross, freaking out about a boy who’s perfectly safe now –” He broke off, and Harry heard a sharp intake of breath. “Oh. _Oh_.”

Harry winced. The panic had started to fade as soon as Merlin had confirmed that Eggsy was alright, but there was a nagging feeling of dread that lingered in the back of his mind. He didn’t think it would ever go away, no matter how long he spent near Eggsy knowing he was uninjured and safe. He knew how trauma could manifest, knew that even if he recovered – whatever recovery meant – there would always be a lingering reminder, a dusty memory, that would never let him forget what Eggsy had suffered.

“How long have they been going on, Harry?” Merlin asked gently.

Harry clenched his jaw. _Blood dripping down his hand – Eggsy’s blood –_

But it was duller now, faded as sleep slipped away from him. He was awake, and the image seemed to be from another dimension.

“The nightmares, Harry. How long?”

Harry closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. “Since the night he was shot,” he said quietly. It sounded too exposed, too honest. He could hear the pain in his own voice that he couldn’t hold back, and it sounded raw.

Merlin sighed. “Harry, it’s been –”

“Too long,” Harry bit out. “I know. A Kingsman agent should never put emotions before a mission. I know, and it won’t happen again.”

“You can’t control that,” Merlin said. “And that’s not what I was going to say. I was going to say that it’s been a tough time for everyone. You haven’t had time to process what happened in the way you normally would during any other mission. It’s understandable if that starts to manifest in your dreams. You’re not the only one here who’s had nightmares before.”

Harry closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips against them. “I worry about him, Merlin.”

“I know. We all do. But he’ll be fine.”

“And tomorrow? He’s _terrified_ of Ross, Merlin. He doesn’t want to go back there, but he is. What if something happens to him?” Harry shook his head. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost him again. I don’t know that I haven’t already lost him.”

“It’s testament to how much he loves you that he wants to be a part of the mission,” Merlin said quietly.

“Is it?” Harry challenged. “Is it because of me, or is it because of something else? Is it his hatred of Ross? He doesn’t look at me the same, Merlin. He looks at me and there’s _fear_ in his eyes. He’s cold, distant, and I…I can’t help thinking that it’s not that I’ve lost him again, it’s that I never got him back.”

Merlin sighed again, and he sounded weary. “It’s going to take time, Harry, you need to understand that. You both need time to heal. But I believe that if anyone can bring him back, it’s you, Harry.” He paused. “Are you alright? I can be there in two minutes if you need me.”

“No.” Harry’s next breath was shuddering despite the certainty of his voice. “No, Merlin, thank you. I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

Harry huffed a laugh. “No,” he agreed. “But I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He sounded surer than he felt.

“And are you going to be alright for this mission tomorrow?”

Harry answered without hesitation. “I am.”

“You’d better be,” Merlin said, and there was a warning in his voice that Harry didn’t think was just good-natured humor.

“I will be,” Harry said, and it was a promise.

“…Alright, then. Goodnight, Harry.”

“Goodnight.”

When Merlin signed off, Harry stood in the shower and scrubbed at his hands until his skin was raw.

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mission to take down Ross is relatively uneventful - almost easy. Too easy. Is it just luck, or was it really a trap all along?

HARRY

 

The suit he’d had made for Eggsy still hung in its garment bag at the shop. Harry and Eggsy took the hyperloop there from HQ early on the morning they were set to leave for Chamonix, and the man at the front desk brought out the suit and kindly informed them that all fitting rooms were open.

“Your choice,” Harry said mildly, once he’d thanked the man and taken the offered suit.

“Really?”

Harry hummed. “I don’t see why not.”

“You’re jokin’ bruv.”

“I’m not. Take your pick.”

Eggsy’s eyes brightened. “Fittin’ room two?” he asked Harry over his shoulder, with a bit of the cheeky grin he always used to have. Harry couldn’t quite tell if it was a good day for him, or if the boy was simply trying extremely hard to make it seem like everything was fine. “Technically I’ve popped my cherry already, and I’ve always wondered what you was hidin’ in there.”

Harry echoed his grin. “Yes, I suppose so. Fitting room two it is.”

Eggsy looked more excited than Harry had seen him since he’d come back from Ross, and Harry felt his heart soar a little. He thought, not for the first time, that he would do anything to see the boy smile like that again.

Still, at the end of the day, there was nothing truly spectacular about fitting room two – at least, nothing truly spectacular by Kingsman standards. Fitting room two was merely a home to more advanced and more experimental weapons – including, thirty years ago, the early developmental stages of a very loud, very smoky grenade that also had the tendency to set things on fire.

Harry had to allow himself a small smile at the memory of that; it was an event that he remembered with some fondness and no small amount of amusement, but not something he’d ever thought would come up again. Certainly it wasn’t anything that had any relevance to the daily events of Kingsman’s operation, or even his own life.

No, that had ended long ago, and he and Merlin were both alright with that.

Despite the fact that most of what was in fitting room two was just a more experimental version of things Kingsman already had, Eggsy was visibly impressed when Harry pulled a small lever underneath the seat of a bench and the back wall slid silently open to reveal the weapons room beyond.

“Fuck me,” he mumbled as they stepped in the room, his eyes going wide, and Harry did his best not to think of a less-than-appropriate response to the boy’s words.

“All of these weapons are in the preliminary stages of field testing,” Harry said.

“This is bloody fucking amazing,” Eggsy said.

“Mm. Yes, I suppose it is. Would you like me to pass on that sentiment to Merlin?”

“What, this is all him?”

“No, not everything, but most of it. I can give him your compliments.”

Eggsy laughed, and the sound was like bells, like sunshine, like butterflies. “Yeah, I suppose he’d like that, wouldn’t he?”

Harry hummed. “He would indeed. This room does actually descend directly to Merlin’s tech labs, though only when it is unoccupied by a customer, of course.”

Eggy wandered around the room, peering closely at everything hung up on a wall or placed carefully on a shelf. “What is all of it?”

“Well,” Harry began, “if we start with some of the older items which are very nearly ready for field use, that there is a new and improved version of the rainmaker. Better shielding, better visual from underneath. Larger clip as well. The knives beside it have been combined with signet ring technology, and can deliver up to fifty thousand volts. What Merlin is working on now is a way to better control the discharge of all of that voltage; sometimes it fails to work.”

Eggsy whistled. “Shit, bruv.” He paused, and then pointed at the pens lining the next shelf down. “Let me guess, a more deadly poison that what you already had?”

Harry chuckled. “Not quite, Arthur wouldn’t allow me to experiment more with it. It contains the same poison as the original version that I showed you before, but it also contains the antidote, now. The antidote is contained in a cartridge next to the ink of the pen. It’s still in trial to ensure that the antidote won’t accidentally leak with the ink and leave the user with nothing in the case that they decide they want the victim to live, after all.”

Eggsy whistled again. “You’re a right weirdo for experimentin’ with these things, you know that?” He gestured broadly at the rest of the room. “Tell me about everythin’ else.”

“Everything else is still much more in development. That on the far wall was inspired by one of the more major missions in recent years; it is, quite literally, a bug – or rather, a cigarette tin with several bugs. Tiny robots that can be remote controlled or programmed to crawl onto a target’s body, thus eliminating the need for personal contact. The current, ongoing issue has been with reliably re-establishing contact if it is somehow lost.

“That,” Harry continued, pointing at a suit on the wall to their left, “is ah, actually inspired by a comic book you may have heard of. Its function, in addition to the normal bulletproofing of our existing standard suits, is to absorb any energy of impact – such as when it is struck with a bullet – which is then stored as potential energy in the suit and can then be released at the wearer’s strategic discretion. We’re just trying to figure out how we can reliably avoid having that energy negatively impact the wearer as well.

“And that,” Harry said, pointing to the top shelf on the wall to their right, “is an improved hand grenade. It’s supposed to be able to target a specific individual or set of individuals upon detonation; a bit like a series of miniature guided missiles. Some of the issues have been figuring out how to communicate to the device who to target. I’m sure you can imagine that it’s a bit difficult to program something or enter a command if you’re under heavy fire, and the handler won’t always be there to take over from a remote location. Still, it could be immensely useful for ambush attacks, and once we’ve ironed through the glitches it will be equally useful in close combat.”

“That’s fuckin’ sick, bruv,” Eggsy murmured. He gave Harry a look out of the corner of his eye. “So just out of curiosity since you didn’t let me see all this last time, what’s all this have to do with poppin’ cherries? Is there some rule that you ain’t allowed to see this new stuff before you’ve seen what Kingsman already has?”

“Ah.” Harry felt his face color, and he cleared his throat. No, he didn’t think this would come up again, but he should’ve known that the life of a Kingsman was unpredictable. “Well, it’s not really a rule, simply an…amusing saying that came out of an unfortunate situation. Long story short, it was because of me, actually, that that particular saying came into being. It was in my early days at Kingsman, right after my first successful mission.” He paused, a chagrined smile pulling at his lips. “To put it bluntly, Merlin was fucking me up a wall and we accidentally detonated one of the experimental flare grenades of the time. It was interesting, to say the least, to have to explain to old Chester King why we were half-naked and covered in burn marks.”

Eggsy’s eyes widened with disbelief, the corners of his mouth tugging into an incredulous laugh. “You did _what_?”

“You heard me,” Harry said, hanging Eggsy’s suit up on a rack on the wall and unzipping the bag. “But enough about that. Here, try this on. You’ll find everything else – the signet ring, the watch, the hand grenade, all of Kingsman’s standard essential weapons – in this case. Merlin informed me that he has made a minor change to the watch, but it should be in working order and he’ll go over it with us before we head out.” He held out a small black briefcase, which Eggsy took and set down carefully on a bench.

Eggsy still looked incredulous, and Harry couldn’t stop the smile that spread itself across his face. “I wasn’t always a perfectly behaving gentleman, despite my birth.”

Eggsy blinked. “Yeah, I see that.” There was something unreadable in his eyes, as if he didn’t quite know what to think about Merlin pushing Harry up against a wall and fucking the living daylights out of him.

“I guarantee, none of these items are prone to exploding unless you expressly attempt to detonate them,” Harry said with a wry smile, as Eggsy took the suit and opened the briefcase, his eyes widening at the sight of the glasses, the signet ring, the hand grenade, the everything that Harry had taught him about the last time they had been together in fitting room three, over two years ago.

Harry let a small smile drift over his face. “I’ll leave you to change, then. I’ll be waiting outside.”

 

 

 

Eggsy stepped out of the fitting room ten minutes later, a spot of color on his cheeks. “How is it?” he asked, a little shyly, standing in front of Harry and looking better than Harry had ever seen anyone look. Better, Harry thought, than anyone had the _right_ to look.

Harry stood wordlessly, swallowing the lump that pride had lodged in his throat. He adjusted the tie slightly, straightened the jacket and smoothed out the lapels, stoically ignoring the thought of how close his fingers were to the boy’s pale throat, to the silk of his neck. Ignoring how easy it would be to just lean forward and kiss him right then and there, if only the boy asked. But he didn’t, and he wouldn’t.

“You look wonderful,” he murmured finally, and stepped back.

Eggsy flushed, his gaze slipping down to the ground.

The mission loomed up suddenly behind them again, reminding Harry of the reason Eggsy was wearing this suit, of what they were about to do, of the danger they were about to be in. The danger that _Eggsy_ was about to be in.

The danger that Eggsy, Harry’s brave, beautiful, brilliant boy, was putting himself in.

“You’ll stay behind me,” Harry said quietly, after a few moments had passed in silence. They would take the elevator down in a few minutes, where they would then take the hyperloop and wait at HQ until they headed out for the departure time of 1300 from the hangar. Departure was still almost three hours from now, but the earlier moment of amusement and lightheartedness was gone, and the reality and gravity of the mission they were about to leave on was sinking in with a deafening finality.

After today, if all went well, Ross would be dead. It would all be over. Everything would end, and they could begin to move on, start to heal.

Everything had to go well.

_I’ll kill him._

“I’ll stay behind you,” Eggsy murmured, and even if Harry knew that couldn’t guarantee the boy’s safety, it made him feel a bit better.

“You’ll choose your weapon on the jet,” Harry said, and the boy’s eyes flashed briefly to his face. “We have a cabinet that you can take a look at. I would advise something inconspicuous.”

“Right. Yeah, of course.” A cautious smile lightened the boy’s features. “No rainmaker then, I suppose?”

Harry echoed his smile. “No.”

Eggsy took a deep breath. “Alright. Let’s go then, yeah?”

“Yes.”

They headed to the elevator in fitting room one, where Harry’s handprint activated the biometric scanner that took them down to the hyperloop. Roxy was already waiting for them, her hair pulled back neatly and her suit a sharp, pinstriped navy blue, and they entered the hyperloop compartment together. Harry did his best not to think about the fact that the last time he’d been in this cabin with Eggsy, the boy had been bleeding out in his arms and minutes from death.

“Merlin’s gone to get lunch for us on his way here,” Roxy said as they sat down. Her voice jolted Harry out of his thoughts. “He’ll be here within a few minutes.” Harry saw her gaze pass first over him, and then over Eggsy. “How are you?”

Harry glanced at Eggsy and then looked back at Roxy. “I’m alright, thank you,” he said. The hyperloop began to accelerate out of the underground below the shop towards HQ. “But I’ll be glad when this is all over.”

“Yes, me too.” Roxy turned to Eggsy. “And you? You’re doing alright?”

“Yeah.” Eggsy’s voice scratched in his throat, and he paused to clear it. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

“You look fantastic,” Roxy said with a small smile.

Eggsy’s cheeks colored a bit and he looked away.

They arrived at HQ within a few minutes, where, overlooking the hangar, Harry could see Kingsman’s mechanics preparing the jet they would be taking and speaking to the woman who would be their pilot. He felt a dull thump in his chest; nerves, to be going on a mission with Eggsy, where he could so easily be hurt, even wearing a bulletproof suit.

He told himself that Eggsy would be alright, over and over as they exited the hyperloop and waited in the room overlooking the hangar. The pod accelerated again, headed back to the shop where Merlin, probably, had called it to bring him to HQ. Harry watched the mechanics wipe down the steel grey of the jet’s exterior, test the angles of the wing flaps and the mirroring that allowed for invisibility, and told himself that all was well.

Beside him, he knew Eggsy could sense his unease. The boy pressed up against him, their shoulders and hips bumping, and reached out to tangle his fingers with Harry’s.

Harry let out a shuddering breath.

He had never before been so nervous before the start of a mission. He didn’t quite know how to deal with it. Stress, that he was used to. Excited nerves, that had long since faded away. He was no longer a young, fresh face out in the field, and the prospect of a new mission was something to be taken seriously but no longer something to be feared.

Until, of course, Eggsy decided to come along and upset the balance of his entire life. Until Harry had decided to fall in love with him and care about him more than anything else in the world. Until it was Eggsy going on a mission with him, still untested, still technically unfit, and putting his own life in danger.

Harry had never had someone he cared about so dearly be in so much danger, and that, he didn’t know how to deal with.

Eggsy gave Harry’s fingers a squeeze. The touch grounded him, pulled his thoughts back to reality and the present instead of caught up in terrifying hypotheticals.

Eggsy had promised him that he would be alright. Eggsy had promised him that he would come back safely.

They’d promised each other.

They’d both keep those promises.

Not to mention that Eggsy was wearing a bulletproof suit. Ross’s agents wouldn’t be able to get through to him again the way they had last time, and thanks to Harry and Roxy on their last mission, Kingsman suits were tried and tested against Ross’s bullets. Eggsy was so much more protected than he was last time. And he was wearing the Kingsman glasses with bulletproof lenses, wearing the signet ring, the watch, the sleek Oxfords with the neurotoxin-coated blade tucked away in the tip of the shoe.

And Eggsy was no fool, no helpless victim. He knew what he was doing, perhaps more than any of the rest of them.

Harry took a deep, shuddering breath, focused on that thought, and felt a little better.

The return of the hyperloop a few minutes later signaled the arrival of Merlin with lunch. They brought it up into the main body of the mansion and went over the plan one last time over their food – soup and, as per Merlin’s preference, fried chicken – and spent the rest of the time prior to departure ensuring that their comms were working, that their weapons were in order, and that all connections were set and secured.

The original idea to engineer the nano bots into a spray had been revised, and the bots were now contained in a new compartment in the watch Kingsman agents already wore. A new small button on the side would activate them to coat the agent’s palm, arranging themselves in the pattern of the handprint they had been programmed to fit, and pressing the button again would retract them. The contacts designed to fool the iris scanners remained as originally planned. Harry and Roxy, as always, would be referred to by their code names Galahad and Lancelot. Eggsy would be referred to as Pendragon for the duration of the mission.

1300 came at once too soon and not soon enough. Eggsy was pale as they entered the hangar and as he walked up the steps into the jet, his mouth set in a harsh line and his jaw tight and tense. Harry stayed close to him, his hip pressed against Eggsy’s as they sat by each other on the jet, their fingers gently tangling together.

“We’ll be safe,” Eggsy said quietly, in the brief silence before they were to leave.

Harry swallowed. “We’ll come home tonight.”

Eggsy exhaled shakily and glanced at Harry, his eyes a bright flash of green. “We’ll be alright,” he murmured, as the jet’s engines rumbled to life. They would be lifted up from underneath the grounds in front of HQ via an ascending platform that emerged up through the opening gates in the ground above them, and then the specialized engines of the jet would allow for a vertical takeoff. From there, it would be straight on to Chamonix, and Ross.

“We’ll be alright,” Harry echoed. He gave Eggsy a small smile, gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

In a few hours, it would all be over.

 

 

 

Following the plan, they were able to enter the complex without issue. The difficult part was actually locating the correct mountain, because the Alps were extensive and from the air all looked about the same. But they knew where Chamonix was, and once they were there Eggsy was able to pinpoint the location of the mountain where the cave entrance to Ross’s compound was located. Once positioned with the jet hovering over the mountain, they had descended via a rope lowered through a compartment that opened in the bottom of the jet. It dropped them off a bit far from the entrance to the cave, but they couldn’t know if Ross was scanning the skies for intruders and didn’t want to risk being caught. Furthermore, the route the rest of the way to the entrance was a relatively easy walk, so there really wasn’t much to complain about.

The entrance to the complex was located in a cave in the mountain, locked with electromagnetic doors activated through identity verification via biometric scanners. There were no guards stationed outside, but until they actually got in there was no way of knowing if there were guards stationed inside. Either way, they had to hope that getting past the biometric scanners would prove to be enough to avoid rousing suspicion; Eggsy had mentioned that sometimes agents returned to the complex in groups, so they didn’t anticipate that entering as their group of three would be a problem.

Roxy took a deep breath. “Well, here goes,” she said. She pressed the button on the side of the new watch Merlin had given each of them and watched the barely-noticeable spread of nano bots over her palm; Harry and Eggsy did the same.

To Harry’s no small relief, the electromagnetic door clicked and then slid open almost soundlessly as soon as all three of them pressed their hands to the handprint scanner and presented their eye to the iris scanner. Harry glanced at Eggsy, giving him a reassuring nod. Beside him, he heard Roxy give a sigh of relief.

“Fantastic. Remember to plant the explosives along the way,” Merlin said quietly as they entered the complex and the door slid shut behind them. “The vents will do, I think, to keep them hidden until we detonate.”

“Right. Tech’s this way,” Eggsy muttered, taking a sharp right down a long hallway. “He usually keeps a few assets around here, considerin’ it’s the main entrance an’ all. We might run into a few, but it shouldn’t give us any problems. None of us has seen all the other assets Ross keeps so we don’t all know each other and we sometimes wear disguises on missions anyway so the suits shouldn’t give us away.”

Harry couldn’t hide a wince at the boy’s words; the thought that Eggsy still thought of himself as one of Ross’s assets, that he had been nothing more than something Ross had kept, stung, and cut deeper than the knife that an unknown man had sunk into his shoulder back in Kentucky over two years ago.

Eggsy was staring straight ahead, and he didn’t see Harry’s reaction. He was pale, already shaken by the surroundings and being back where his nightmare resided.

“Vent,” Roxy said quietly, and they paused for her to slip a small grenade into the slots between the metal. The grenades were all programmed and connected to each other and a trigger over a network; once planted and the connection switched on, they could all be remotely detonated at the same time.

“Remember, if you see agents, be friendly but keep conversation short. Avoid speaking if you can, in case some voice recognition software picks it up,” Merlin said. “And take the next left.”

The main obstacle they expected to counter was getting into the tech department itself. Ross would have been well aware that tech would be a place where he could be tracked, and that tech would be a place where all of his latest plans and developments could be accessed. No doubt he would have further safeguards in place to prevent just any of his assets from entering the area; for that reason, Merlin had chosen to program the nano bots in Roxy’s watch to also arrange themselves into the handprint of someone Eggsy believed worked in tech, based on his serial number. Her contacts, as well, could be exchanged to match the tech agent’s iris pattern. To avoid rousing suspicion of three people simultaneously entering the compound and then three people simultaneously entering and eventually leaving the tech department, Roxy alone would enter and insert the flash drive into one of the computers there. Meanwhile, Harry and Eggsy would continue planting explosives in strategic positions throughout the immediate area.

Despite the fact that tech was tucked away into a far corner of the compound, actually getting into tech proved easier than they had anticipated; a code and a thumbprint were the only things required to open the doors. There were a few tense minutes over the comms during which they heard Roxy exchange a few words with one of the agents inside, but not long after that they heard Merlin confirm that he was in the system.

“I’ll work as quickly as I can,” Merlin said, and Harry could hear him typing rapidly at his keyboard. “Galahad, Pendragon, stay close to tech. You will all be moving at the same time once I lock onto this signal, and I want you nearby so you can reconvene quickly.”

“How is it looking?” Harry asked quietly.

“It’s…tough,” Merlin admitted. “He’s got everything encrypted, as I suspected. But he’s also got to have a key to the encryption, which hopefully I’ll be able to find…but in the end, reading the data itself isn’t important, I just need to be able to follow it. It appears that he’s bouncing the signals around to a few different locations, probably to throw off potential trackers like us. I’ll need a bit of time to triangulate everything, but it helps enormously that I’m already in the system. Lancelot managed to find a computer that someone was already logged into, bless them both.”

There were a few more tense minutes during which Merlin looked through the data signals in the network, finding patterns that could lead him to Ross’s location. There were a few agents that walked by, but Harry and Eggsy kept their heads down and through something that Harry might have dared called luck if he didn’t know better, none of the agents who walked by were agents that Eggsy had known.

“Got it,” Merlin announced triumphantly. “Store room on the ground floor in the southwestern corner of the complex; that must be where the entrance to his bunker is.”

“In a store room, as expected,” Harry said. He glanced at Eggsy; the boy was frowning.

“What is it?” Merlin asked.

Eggsy hesitated; Harry could see the tension in the hunch of his shoulders, and he knew it was something other than being back in the place Ross had kept him and tortured him for two years. “It’s…too simple. Ross wouldn’t make it so easy to find him.”

“Could just be luck,” Roxy said; she’d just come out of the tech department and met up with them. “Would it be too much to ask for that?”

“You know how that always turns out,” Harry said wryly.

“Even so, the signal is – ah, another agent just up ahead,” Merlin said. “Harry’s glasses picked up a heat signature around the corner.”

“Right. Thanks, Merlin,” Roxy said.

“It’s another left down the end of this hall,” Merlin said. “Bloody hell, this place is big.”

They rounded the corner, and then Ross’s agent looked up, and Harry saw first confusion, and then recognition, and then realization cross the other man’s face.

“Shit,” Merlin snarled, at the same time the man began to shout, at the same time Harry pulled out his gun and shot the other man in the head.

Eggsy flinched beside him; Harry saw it, and immediately felt guilt thrum hot in his veins for being responsible for it, no matter how necessary it was. The man’s body crashed to the ground, lifeless, blood seeping from the single wound in the center of his forehead.

There was a moment of silence. Adrenaline had flooded Harry’s veins and still burned hot, making his heart pound, driving his senses to heighten, and his ears strained for sounds that might mean the commotion had drawn attention to them.

“Good thing your gun is silenced,” Roxy murmured.

“Let’s just hope it was silenced enough,” Harry muttered.

“He’ll know,” Eggsy said, and his voice trembled, and there was a look of something almost like shock on his face. “He’ll know we’re here. He’ll…he can see that the life signs of one of his assets just stopped. He’ll know that it wasn’t because he was killed on a mission.” He swallowed. “I didn’t…I didn’t think we’d run into anyone who would recognize me. I’m sorry, I said I wouldn’t fuck up the mission, I…”

“Eggsy,” Harry murmured, and he tried not to hurt at the way the boy flinched away from him. “Eggsy, it’s alright. It was bound to happen at some point, whether you were with us or not.”

“He would’ve tried to kill you,” Merlin said quietly. “All of you. And a moment later and he would’ve said something, potentially alerted more agents in the area. But we need to move on, quickly. There is every chance that despite the silencer, someone heard the gunshot. We need to get to Ross as soon as we can. Keep going, and I don’t think I need to remind you all to stay alert.”

<Thoughts on splitting up?> Roxy typed; they needed to be more cautious now, and wanted to avoid speaking out loud as much as possible to avoid giving away their location or what they were doing, if anyone overheard.

<No> Harry typed immediately. He saw Eggsy glance at him, worry but also something like relief and gratefulness in his gaze.

“No,” Merlin agreed. “I don’t want any of you going alone. In any other situation splitting up might give you better chances at getting in, but I don’t want _any_ of you captured. If you’re caught by a group of his agents, considering their abilities the three of you have a better chance against them than one of you on your own.”

Beside Harry, Roxy gave a short, crisp nod; she saw the sense in Merlin’s words.

“Now let’s just hope that we don’t actually run into a group,” Merlin mused.

<It’s not all bad> Roxy typed. <Ross’s agents still can’t communicate with each other, and as Pendragon said, he doesn’t monitor their locations unless they’re on missions. Of course there’s a chance that he’ll have noticed one agent’s sudden lack of life signs, but there’s also a chance that out of so many agents, he hasn’t noticed yet. If he had, he would’ve seen where he was when he died, and he’d have agents swarming us by now>

“Six hundred is a lot to monitor,” Merlin agreed. “Given nothing has happened yet, I’d say we have a little more time. But we need to hurry. Next right.”

They turned, still planting primed grenades into the vents that they passed. They met several other agents as they headed to the stairwell and down to the ground floor, none of which showed any recognition of any of them, and Harry felt a nagging unease at the back of his mind, growing larger with every passing moment, telling him that something wasn’t right.

It was too easy. For all of Ross’s security, they had gotten into what was easily the middle of the compound with only one encounter with an agent who had recognized Eggsy and who would have given them away. (Because that’s what he would have done, right? That look of recognition was more than just recognizing a fellow agent. There was confusion, as if he’d known that Eggsy wasn’t supposed to be there, as if he’d known what Eggsy had done. Knowing that, it would only have been a matter of seconds before he would have pieced everything together. And he was starting to speak – surely to warn someone, to sound the alarm.)

But he had been the only one. And since then, they’d only passed single agents, single agents who did nothing to try and stop them, nothing to question them, who did little more than simply glance up at them and continue on their way.

It was looking more and more like a trap.

But maybe he was being paranoid, because he was so worried that Eggsy would get hurt, or that Ross would get his hands on his beautiful boy again. Maybe Roxy was right, and they really were just lucky.

<Any more heat signatures, Merlin?> Roxy typed.

“None,” Merlin said, and Harry could hear the note of uneasiness thrumming below the calm he always projected. He knew the others could hear it too, and a look at Roxy confirmed that even she, despite what she had said earlier about them just being lucky, wasn’t so sure.

It was too empty, too quiet, too easy. They all agreed on that.

Because there was no such thing as luck. In Kingsman’s line of work, it would be more than foolish to believe in it. To put faith in luck as as good as a death sentence, and that was something every agent would do well to remember.

“Go straight here,” Merlin said. “And it’s just at the end of the next right, also at the end of this next hall.” He’d been telling them every turn, even though Eggsy was with them, even though Harry and Roxy had studied the map of the compound and knew exactly where the storeroom was where they were headed. It was a little bit of comfort.

Beside him, Eggsy was tense and pale, and shaking slightly. Harry didn’t think anyone would notice the trembling if they hadn’t been looking for it; just a faint tremor in his fingertips, a barely-noticeable shudder in his breathing. Harry reached out, brushing his fingers against the back of the boy’s hand; he didn’t dare do more, in the event that another of Ross’s agents rounded the corner unexpectedly and saw them, but the boy glanced at him, and Harry felt his trembling slow.

Then, ahead of them just at the end of the hallway, Roxy stopped abruptly, glancing back at them over her shoulder and motioning frantically for them to stop. Harry realized that it was the first time he’d seen fear in her expression. Dread settled in a tight knot in the pit of Harry’s stomach and he froze, instinctively glancing over at Eggsy. For a moment, his nightmares almost came flooding back to him, and he felt his heartrate jack up, felt his palms beginning to sweat.

But Eggsy looked back at him, lips pressed together in a thin line, fierce determination blazing in his eyes, and gave an almost imperceptible nod. _I’m fine._

“Ross’s agents,” Merlin said quietly through the comms. “Lancelot’s glasses just barely picked up on the heat signatures. Over a dozen, just ahead.”

<Between us and where the signal leads, I’m assuming?> Harry typed.

Merlin sounded frustrated. “Yes. We’ll need to find a way through; according to the map Pendragon provided us with I don’t see any way around them which would lead to the storeroom.”

<No> Eggsy typed, and he’d reached out to grip Harry’s arm sharply, almost frantically. <We need to go the other way. This is the trap>

“Are you sure?” Merlin asked.

<Yes. If I really was set up to see that password, you can expect Ross knows you’re coming. He’ll want one of you alive. Following the signal is too easy. Everything so far has been to easy. The other way behind us has a hall leading to a store room just as the way in front of us does>

<We did say it was most likely a storeroom, but we never said which one. Ross could be hiding in the one back there instead> Roxy typed with a frown.

“How do you know it’s a trap, and that he’s not here?” Merlin asked, and Harry could hear the question underlying it. _Why didn’t you say something earlier?_

<I just think it’s too obvious> Eggsy said, and he glanced at Harry uncertainly, and Harry knew that he’d heard the note of accusation in Merlin’s voice, knew that Merlin still didn’t fully trust him. <Running into agents before, that was normal. Not hitting any traps so far away from the storeroom, that was normal; in all the missions I’ve been on, he’s been stingy and strategic. But this is obvious. If he were really here he might as well be putting up a big neon sign saying ‘I’m here, there are guards in front of the entrance to my location.’ Which is something he’d never do>

“He could also be banking on us thinking of that and turning around while he’s actually hiding there,” Merlin countered. “You can’t deny that the signal is headed to one singular place, and as far as I know it’s not being rerouted. He has to have access to whatever server is located in that storeroom.”

<Or he could have temporarily rerouted it to different servers> Roxy pointed out; a frown furrowed her forehead. <I think Eggsy’s right. We can’t deny that we’ve had it easy. If he really knew we were coming and if he really set this up as a trap – which is what this looks like – he would do everything he could to make it look like he’s over there, including sending the signal over there, while in reality he’s hiding out somewhere else where he can make a quick getaway while we’re occupied over here. Or he’d capture us and not have to make a getaway at all> Her frown deepened. <To me, the situation reads this way: he knew we were coming, so he set out a trail, at the end of which he planted agents to capture us once we got to that point and realized that going through his agents was the only physical way to get through to the storeroom the signal is headed to. In the meantime, he temporarily relocated so that in the off chance we _did_ get through, we wouldn’t find him. Eggsy, is this what you’re saying too?>

Eggsy nodded. <Yes. And it fits what he’s done before too>

<We can’t risk losing him> Harry typed. <We could split up, send two of us after the trail and the third in the other direction?>

<No> Eggsy gripped Harry’s wrist tightly, fingers digging into his skin. <There are too many of them, and I guarantee you he’s set up traps other than putting a dozen of his best agents on patrol, traps that we can’t scan for. Gas, or something. Once he knocks you out you’re fucked>

“That’s true, we cannot under any circumstances allow him to get his hands on any of you. But we haven’t run into any traps yet,” Merlin said.

<That’s because we weren’t getting close> Eggsy was pale, looking almost pleadingly at Harry, and Harry knew he was convinced that this was a trap, that Ross wasn’t really there in the southwestern storeroom.  <Merlin, you said yourself the complex is big. And he’s rich and has the ability to set up traps, but like I said, he’s strategic. He has resources but he still wouldn’t waste resources building traps all over the compound, he’d save it for when there’s no other way to go. Only one way we’re forced to go, like right now. There’s only one way to each of the storerooms, and that’s the hallway we’re about to turn onto>

<And the agents?> Harry typed. <They’re clearly stationed there for something, and my bet is that they’re guarding something important. Could it be Ross or the entrance to his bunker? Would he set up a trap in the only hallway leading to his location, to ensure that we would be caught in it when we found that there was no other place to go? I doubt that he would leave himself truly unprotected, wherever he really is. Could this be that place?>

<I was one of his favorites> Eggsy replied, and Harry felt his grip tighten, saw the thinning of his lips. <And even I never knew where Ross really was. I doubt he’d tell over a dozen of his agents his true location, since once he told them to watch this hallway there would be no doubt that he or something really important is hiding out in the storeroom it leads to. He wouldn’t want there to _actually_ be something there, he keeps things ambiguous. My guess is still that this is a trap, but the way to where he really is will be easier to get through because it would be something we wouldn’t have guessed>

There was a pause. Ahead of them, Harry could hear the agents walking around, occasionally exchanging a few words with each other.

“There’s a point in all that,” Merlin said finally. “Alright, I’m going to take a deep breath and tell you to do was Eggsy says. Double back and take a right at the end of the hall, we’re going the other way. And let’s hope you’re right, Eggsy, if we lose Ross now there’s no telling when we’ll have another chance to get him.”

<I’m right> Eggsy typed, and his face was set in determination. <I know I am. Ross wouldn’t make himself that easy to follow>

<He also hasn’t sent anyone after us even though he clearly has been expecting an attack> Roxy typed. <He has guards stationed and he had every way to know where we killed that agent. He has access to his last visual feeds and knows what we look like, and yet nothing has happened. If he wanted us dead he would have done something already. It makes sense that this ahead of us is a trap, that he wants us alive, and that he wants to put the least amount of effort possible into it, so he’ll try and make us walk right into it instead of actively sending agents after us>

“Either way, I doubt you could make it past a dozen of Ross’s agents without raising some sort of alarm,” Merlin mused. “There’s not enough charge in your watches to deliver darts to take out all of them – ten between the three of you, maybe, but certainly not a dozen. Same with the amnesia darts.”

<And they’d see us> Roxy typed. <There’s no way we’d be able to hit all of them before at least one of them sounded the alarm or started shooting>

“Right.” Merlin sighed. “Well, the other way it is. Keep alert; we don’t know if Ross would have sent agents behind us to close in the trap, but it’s always a possibility.”

Harry saw Eggsy flinch at Merlin’s words, saw the sudden fear and almost-panic that crossed his face, but he followed as they headed back down the hallway they had come from.

He kept his hand on his gun as they walked, all of his senses on hyper alert. If Eggsy was right and Ross didn’t allow his agents to communicate other than on missions or in person, Kingsman had an advantage. If they did run into agents bent on taking them down, Kingsman only had to kill them and get out of sight before backup heard the commotion and came running. But they couldn’t bank on that; even if that had been true a month ago, if Ross was really expecting an ambush and setting up a trap he would have every reason to have made an exception to his rule and allowed for remote communication within the complex.

<Agents just ahead> Harry typed from where he was leading the way, even though there was no way Eggsy and Roxy hadn’t already seen them.

<Hostile> Eggsy added. <One of them knows me, and if that last asset was anything to go by, he’ll know I’m not supposed to be here>

“Shit,” Merlin said. “Don’t attack unless they fight first, you don’t want to be the one to initiate something and give away that we’re intruders. But keep it quiet if it does come down to a fight, will you? If those agents behind you hear this, they’ll come running, and there’s no way you three on your own will be able to subdue over a dozen of Ross’s guys without creating even more commotion. That means no guns unless you need to.”

<Copy> Roxy typed.

“Good news though, they’re, as Pendragon put it, foot soldiers,” Merlin said. “Shouldn’t give you three much trouble.”

The agents – four of them – seemed to approach casually, almost nonchalantly, as if they were just four agents passing what they knew were three of Ross’s other agents. Harry caught a glimpse of hope, just briefly, that Eggsy was wrong, that they didn’t know him or that they didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to be there, but it was short-lived, and as they drew closer it became increasingly clear that Ross’s agents had no intention of letting them get by without a fight. As soon as they were within arm’s reach, the first of them struck out.

Harry was prepared; quite frankly, he would be a poor excuse of a Kingsman if he wasn’t. He saw a glint in the other man’s hand and ducked under the swung knife, striking out with his right hand to try and electrocute the man with his ring. But despite only being one of Ross’s second-tier agents, the man was still fast, and he spun away. The knife bit at the belly of Harry’s forearm, stopped by the cloth of his suit; the movement threw off the man’s rhythm and Harry took the opportunity to strike out, connecting his signet ring to the man’s ribs. He pressed his ring, instantly delivering enough current to knock the man out, and the body dropped to the ground.

Beside him, he saw Roxy engaged with one of the other agents, and Eggsy engaged with the remaining two. There was a deadly, fluid grace to the way the boy moved, slipping around blows like quicksilver and delivering his own with all the ferocity of the best of Kingsman’s agents. His face was like stone, set in determination as he whirled and drove his elbow into one man’s chest, sweeping out a leg and driving his other knee into the man’s spine as he fell over backwards. The other agent’s knife slashed, hissing through the air, and Eggsy arched backwards to avoid it. It caught the front lapel of his suit, tearing at the fabric, but Harry’s electric dart found exposed skin, and the woman’s body crumpled to the ground. A moment later, the body of the agent Roxy was engaged with hit the floor.

“Down the hall on Harry’s left,” Merlin snapped, and Harry could already hear the sound of several sets of running footsteps over the roaring of blood in his ears. “Second door to the right. The code is 57293. Get in, wait for them to pass, and then double back.”

They were already moving before Merlin had finished speaking. The door Merlin had mentioned was locked, but swung open noiselessly as soon as Eggsy punched in the code. It seemed to be nothing more than a small closet at first, but then Eggsy let out a low curse.

“What is it?” Merlin demanded.

“It’s not just any closet,” Eggsy said quietly. “This is a basic Medical supplies closet, one of the several that are located all around the compound. We just knocked out four of Ross’s guys and we had more behind us. If someone calls Medical, this is the first place they’ll go.”

“We just have to risk it,” Roxy muttered. “If anyone comes in here, we need to take them out and then get out of here as soon as we can.”

“We’re in luck,” Harry said, from where he was right next to the door. “They seem to have gone past.” He could hear the footsteps approaching and then retreating again as the agents ran past the hall; there was no way they could get a heat signature confirmation through the material of the door, but they would simply have to take their chances.

Merlin sounded tense. “Right. Unfortunately the other storeroom we were headed to is down that hall you came in, which is probably swarming with agents now. I think I see a way around, but who knows how many more agents there are now; that commotion was probably enough to alert the dozen back there. Is there any way you could get into the vents?”

“They’re too small to get into and probably blocked off every so often,” Eggsy said. A frustrated frown was tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Ross made this place so it’s hard for people to sneak around. I’m guessing the vents must also lead to wherever he is since there has to be a way he can get heatin’ and AC, not to mention ventilation. If he doesn’t want anyone knowin’ where he is or if he doesn’t want anyone bein’ able to get to him, the first thing he’d do is close off the vents.”

Merlin cursed. “Alright, then we have no choice but to go on foot. You’ll have to somehow get through those agents, and once you get to the end of that very exposed hallway you need to make a right. There’s a set of doors at the end of that; I’ll give you the codes once you get there, and you’ll need to factor in enough time to allow for biometric scanning as well. That’s the entrance to the storeroom.”

Harry met Eggsy’s gaze. “We’ll get through. Merlin, is there anything you can do through tech? He must have some way of contacting his agents. If you can send an order to all of them, tell them to convene somewhere out of the way – ”

“Already on it,” Merlin said. “Good thinking, Galahad. Pendragon, was there any specific way he usually sent out messages? There aren’t any records or history here and I need to make sure that whatever I send out is realistic. A good number of his agents are probably already aware that they’re under attack.”

Eggsy hesitated. “I…I don’t know. I don’t remember him ever givin’ out mass orders like that. Everythin’ was individual. Even if it was somethin’ involving a few people, like missions where he wanted a few of his assets, he still always gave out orders individually. An’ all of his orders were given out when we was in our rooms or somethin’, he ain’t ever given out orders through any of our trackers.”

“Shit,” Merlin muttered. “The problem is, if we don’t get this right they’ll all know someone hacked into the tech system.”

“So not only will they be on higher alert, but they’ll also send someone to tech and figure out what happened,” Roxy realized. “If they find out, they could find a way to lock you out of the system or shut everything down.”

Eggsy shook his head. “No, I say go for it. They can’t send orders without Ross’s authorization since they ain’t on missions. There isn’t one person who can tell everyone else what to do, an’ even if they can, that’ll take time.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Merlin spoke. “Alright. I’m going to access the data from all of the agents’ eyepieces and hope it doesn’t send everyone an alert that there was a breach in security. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll send the command to head to the other corner of the complex.”

The next few moments were tense. Harry’s hand found Eggsy’s in the darkness of the closet and he squeezed gently in reassurance; he heard the boy’s shuddering breaths, felt the tension in Roxy’s body as she stood beside them.

“You’re green to go,” Merlin said finally. “I don’t think anyone’s noticed we’re in, or if they’ve noticed anything, they’re too scared to question it. Either way, location data on all of the agents show that none of them are in your area anymore. You need to move quickly and quietly.”

“Copy that,” Harry said. They slipped out of the closet and headed in the direction Merlin had told them as quickly as they could; the bodies of the four agents who had attacked them earlier had been cleared from the hallway, and the whole place was eerily silent.

They reached the storeroom without incident; still, Harry’s heart was pounding by the time they entered the code and got through the biometric handprint an iris scanners.

<Weird> Eggsy typed as the door closed behind him. The lights flickered on, but they were dim; still, the faint lighting combined with the glasses’ heat scanning feature was enough to let them know that there was no one and nothing else in there. <We ain’t ever allowed in the storerooms so I thought they’d be restricted to certain people>

“We agreed that this is likely a trap,” Merlin said, and if it weren’t for the importance of successfully completing the mission and avoiding being caught and captured Harry knew he would’ve been amused.

<There> Roxy typed, pointing to the back corner of the storeroom. <Merlin, any idea about that door?>

“No,” Merlin said. “There’s nothing on the compound map Pendragon provided us with.”

<I’ve never been in here before> Eggsy typed. <I had no idea there was a door in here>

“There’s a code for the door to the bunker listed in the files here,” Merlin said quietly. “Thoughts on trying it on that door? I figure there’s at least a bit of wiggle room to try things; I doubt Ross would want the alarm to trip every time someone accidentally pressed the wrong button, with six hundred agents running around. We probably have one or two tries, and we can reevaluate after that if it doesn’t work.”

<Might as well give it a try> Roxy typed.

“Right, then,” Merlin said, when no objection from Harry or Eggsy was forthcoming. “I’m sending you the code now; it’s quite long.”

A moment later, the string of letters and numbers popped up on the lens of the glasses. Harry entered it into the keypad, and to his surprise and slight dread, the lock of the door clicked open.

He glanced at Eggsy. _Here goes_.

Eggsy met his gaze, his eyes bright and clear, his jaw set in determination. He gave Harry a single nod, and they headed in.

The door was, as it turned out, the entrance to a long, winding tunnel, leading constantly and consistently downhill. Automatic lights turned on as they walked and turned off as they passed, illuminating them and the path immediately in front of them but leaving everything else in darkness. After a full five minutes of walking cautiously, weapons held out in front of them and slowing around every turn, another door appeared.

“It’s the bunker,” Merlin said. “It must be. Sending you another code – ”

And then he broke off, because the lock to the door clicked and it swung open soundlessly in front of them.

Harry saw Roxy glance at him and Eggsy uneasily. There was no doubt that this was a trap now, that Ross had known they were coming and had prepared for it, but they couldn’t turn back. Ross couldn’t be allowed to escape, and if they left now, there was no telling when they’d have the opportunity to go after him again, if they could even find him.

They had to go in.

“Be careful,” Merlin said, somewhat unnecessarily.

The space they entered was large and roomy. It felt a bit like a foyer, only more sparsely decorated, and the colors and wall material more stark. There were doors all around, marked by where they lead to, and based on the labels, it indeed seemed to be a fully self-sufficient space. There was an indoor greenhouse, a generator and electrical room, a kitchen, a water recycling room, and hallways branching out that no doubt lead to other areas containing things necessary to sustain life for a rather extended period of time.

“Split up,” Merlin said quietly. “We’ll need to search the area. You’ll convene back here if you don’t find anything.”

<Copy> Harry typed.

They each started in a different room, checking not just for Ross but for anything that could help lead them to him. Things seemed to be running on automatic – perfect for a one-man bunker. Several of the boxes in the corner of the kitchen seemed to be newly delivered and hadn’t even been opened yet, and Roxy notified them of a room that looked like it was currently under construction, but none of them found anything of note until Eggsy sent a message through the glasses.

<Hallway to the right, third door to the right. It’s open and looks like a computer room of some sort>

Instantly, Harry and Roxy were on their way.

“Confirmed; there’s a heat signature,” Merlin said quietly. “Pendragon’s glasses picked it up. Be careful when you head in.”

Eggsy was waiting just outside the room when Harry arrived; Roxy appeared a few moments later. The boy’s face was pale and there was a hunted look in his eyes.

Harry took a deep breath. Whoever in there could be Ross, the man responsible for everything Eggsy had gone through.

<Ready?> Harry asked.

Eggsy nodded once.

<Going in> Harry told Merlin.

“Copy that. Be ready for anything.”

Harry nodded once, drew his weapon, met Roxy’s gaze and then Eggsy’s, and stepped in.

The room was sizeable for something located in a missile-proof bunker in the middle of a mountain, and there were screens around the edges of the room. There was a man sitting in a simple office chair at the far end of the room, facing away from them and watching what looked to be the visual feed of an agent on a mission. He was wearing a uniform just like what Eggsy had described all of Ross’s agents wore, his back to them, but that wasn’t what caught Harry’s attention.

There was a mole on the man’s left hand, in the same place Eggsy had described on the agent numbered A329-0. When the man glanced over his shoulder, almost casually, as if he’d known they were there the whole time, that same serial number was branded onto the front of his uniform.

Harry let out a soft breath of realization.

“It was a setup,” Merlin hissed. Harry could hear the note of fear in his voice, and his heart jumped in his chest. It was a trap, like they’d all suspected, but it was set up by the same man who Eggsy had seen entering in the password in the first place, the same man who –

<A329-0> Harry typed. Eggsy was frozen beside him, his expression a mixture of fear, of shock, of horror. <Anything on him?>

“Nothing,” Merlin said quietly, and his voice was cautious, and that in itself told Harry all he needed to know.

<Facial recognition?>

“Running that now. Until results come up, I just checked his file,” Merlin continued. “The file for A329-0, that is. I looked through all the records, and the folder for A329-0 is suspiciously empty. No handprint, no iris, no name, nothing. Certainly no videos. Don’t do anything rash when I say this, any of you, but I don’t think there’s any other explanation for this other than that this is the man who calls himself Ross Merkel.”

Ross Merkel.

Anger roared in Harry’s veins like fire. He’d suspected as much as what Merlin had just told him, but hearing it out loud, hearing it confirmed, was something else entirely. _This_ was Ross. This was the man who was responsible for the murders of the past decade, the man responsible for ordering the executions of hundreds of innocent people, the man who was plotting to take over the world no matter what the cost, no matter what the reason.

This was the man responsible for hurting Eggsy.

The man swiveled around in his chair. “Welcome,” he said, and he spread his hands amicably. “Though I must say, I wasn’t expecting all of you. I apologize for the wait, a delicate situation needed tending to.”

Roxy pointed her weapon at Ross’s head. “I should kill you right now.”

“Ah, so you’ve confirmed who I am. Then by all means, do so,” Ross said. He was smiling now, looking directly at Eggsy. “Kill me. But I assume you have questions; for instance, I’m sure at least one of you is wondering if this is a trap, and if your dear little friend there is the one who set it up.”

<Anything?> Roxy asked.

“It’s him,” Eggsy said, sounding slightly stunned. “He didn’t even bother hiding his face.”

“Not his name, either,” Merlin said. “Facial recognition just came back with results. It’s not definitive since there doesn’t seem to be any recent record on him, but it matched him to the image of a thirteen-year-old boy from a little more than two decades ago. It seems that his name really is Ross Merkel. Born in Lancaster thirty-seven years ago. His parents are still alive, but Ross himself was reported missing over twenty years ago. There’s no record of a police investigation, and he was presumed dead.”

“He didn’t even hide his face,” Eggsy said again.

“Stand up,” Harry said sharply, to Ross.

Arching an eyebrow, Ross stood.

“Now take five steps forward, kneel, and put your hands behind your head.”

Ross looked amused. “Surely you don’t need to _beg_.”

Without hesitation, Harry sent a bullet into each of Ross’s knees.

Ross screamed. He fell, doubling over, blood soaking through the ripped knees of his uniform trousers.

“Speak,” Harry said. He was shaking with anger, and everything in his body told him to put a bullet through the man’s head, but he couldn’t. He needed to hold back, at least for now, and get as much out of Ross as he could.

Ross spat, and straightened as best he could with two ruined knees. “Fine.” He glared up at Harry, was silent for a few long moments, and finally spoke with almost a sneer. “You’re right about the trap, about everything being too easy – oh, don’t look so surprised, surely you didn’t think I wouldn’t closely monitor everything that goes on in my own compound? Yes, I knew everything that was going on. I’ll admit, I didn’t anticipate you to figure out that you should turn around and head in the other direction, and I didn’t expect you to make it all the way here. I must say I’m impressed. With you, Eggsy.”

“Don’t say his name,” Harry snarled, when he saw the boy flinch.

“No,” Eggsy said, and he looked determined even as his voice shook. “It’s alright. Let him explain.”

A small smile tilted Ross’s mouth. “Thank you, love. As I said, I didn’t expect you to be here. I suppose that was my weakness, in the end, underestimating you. Oh, rest assured, Harry, your dear little boy toy had no part in setting up this trap. Nothing voluntary, at least, though you can’t deny that he was the one who supplied you with the password to get here in the first place. I figured, when my other asset shot him, that either he would die and my backup would get to you all in the cab, or he would heal and get that password to you, which you would use to access my files and think you had enough to go on to come after me here, all the way in Chamonix. Either way, one of you would end up in my possession, and I’d get the information I wanted; namely, whatever I needed to wipe out your pesky organization that’s stopping me from achieving my goal. Tell me, is world peace really that terrible?”

“The way you’re going about it, yes,” Roxy said coldly.

Ross shrugged. “To each their own. Anyway, I knew all along that Eggsy had some connection to Kingsman. I’d been following him, you see, and knew about his marks in the Marines just as well as I suspect you did. I knew when he started going to that Kingsman tailor shop and when you walked with him, Harry. Oh, yes, I saw it all, even if I wasn’t keeping the closest tabs on him. So I suspected, but never had any reason to worry, never had any reason to confirm it, even when you took down my friend Valentine.

But then you began investigating me, and that got annoying. I wanted you out of my way. Eggsy was my best agent, you see, it only made sense that I had him lead the mission. I saw his reaction when I handed him that mission to take down Kingsman and I knew that he knew you, no matter what he said about it. But no matter, no matter, I told myself, whichever it was, it would work in my favor. I planted myself there for him to see that password, and I knew that if he was loyal to me, he would find a way to take you down even if he ended up in your hands, or at least give me something that would allow the mission to be passed onto someone else. If he was still loyal to you, or turned his loyalty to you, he would give you everything he knew, everything that he thought would help you get in here and take me down, including that password. He would ensure that you were able to get here, and so I laid my traps accordingly, and indeed, here you are now.”

Harry felt Eggsy stiffen at Ross’s words, saw the way they had affected him and the shock and guilt that welled up in him.

 _It wasn’t your fault_ , he wanted to say. _You didn’t know._

And it didn’t matter. Kingsman was here, with Ross helpless in front of them. They would win.

“So yes, I planted myself there,” Ross continued. “I made my preparations for when you arrived, allowed you to get far into the compound. The traps would come later, when you were far enough in that you couldn’t get out. That hallway back there to the southwestern storeroom? Eggsy was right; good for you that you listened to him. There were plates in the ground rigged to tear gas that would be pumped into the area. You were in training for the Marines, Eggsy, you know what that feels like. You know that you would be helpless. Once you were incapacitated, my assets would move in and bring you to me. It seemed foolproof.”

“And yet you still failed,” Roxy said. “You’re as good as dead, and you have nothing on us.”

Ross chuckled. “Oh, don’t get so cocky, sweetheart, I’m not finished yet. As you probably know by now – and I would have vastly overestimated your intelligence and your abilities if you didn’t – my goal was, and still is, to figure out where Kingsman is based. I want to take you out, you see, to destroy you. Even if I die, even if you kill me, if you were gone, then all my assets with their missions lined up would still be able to complete them. Take down those who advocate war, leave those who want peace in power. Even without me, I can achieve my end goal if Kingsman were destroyed. Of course, my personal survival would have been ideal, but alas. I didn’t expect Eggsy to come with you, to figure out that I had set that trap and tell you to come the other way; a shortcoming on my part, I admit.

“But you had your own shortcomings.” Ross’s lips parted in a smile; toothy, sharklike. “You were just as arrogant as I was that this plan of yours would work, and in the end, even if you kill me, I’ll still win.” He leaned forward, and his smile widened. “You see, data tracking goes both ways. You can track me, but as long as I look for it, as long as I pay enough attention to notice your new signal worming into my network, I can latch on and track you too.”

“Shit,” Merlin snarled, just as horror threaded its way into Harry’s mind, and Harry heard him speaking rapidly to the other knights back at HQ. “Fucking _shit_ , hell, get Gawain on, I need missile defense – ”

Harry’s blood ran cold.

“What did you do?” Roxy demanded, and Harry could hear the fear in her voice just as he felt it in his own veins, just as he saw Eggsy’s face go white beside him. “What the _fuck_ did you do?”

Ross chuckled. “Oh, I’m sure you can figure it out. You need to prove that you’ve got the brains to match that ego of yours, don’t you?”

“ _What the fuck did you do_?” Roxy demanded, and she walked forward, pressing the barrel of her gun to Ross’s temple.

Ross’s smile only widened; he looked more amused than anything. “Oh sweetheart, don’t let your emotions get the best of you, weren’t you ever taught that?” He laughed. “Well, I tracked your signal, of course! I knew you had to have a handler back at your headquarters, and I knew you’d try and get into my system to track me and figure out where I was, so I prepared for that. Once you got into my system it was only a matter of time before I got into yours, got through firewalls and your annoying little VPN’s, and tracked it back to your headquarters.”

“Fucking hell,” Harry breathed. Beside him, Eggsy’s face was white.

“Shoot it down,” Merlin was barking into the comms; he hadn’t turned off the connection to Harry, Roxy, or Eggsy’s glasses, and they could hear everything. “Fucking _shoot it down_ , Gawain – ”

“Seems like I’m going to get my way after all,” Ross said with a small smile.

No. No, this couldn’t be happening. Kingsman had survived so much already, including previous missile attempts. They’d saved the world over and over again, cheated death time and time again, it seemed ridiculous that something like this – a stupid, simple mistake like this – would bring them down. It couldn’t.

And Gawain was an expert at missile defense. He would have no trouble bringing down the missile. It didn’t matter that time was short, that it only takes about four minutes for a ballistic missile to travel the distance from Chamonix to HQ just a few miles outside of London, and that there was no doubt that Ross had already sent the command for the missile to be launched – perhaps, even, when they had first entered the room and believed him to be supervising another agent’s mission. That didn’t matter. None of that did. It didn’t matter that the missile had already been on its way by the time Kingsman had realized what was going on. Gawain would bring it down, he wouldn’t let Kingsman be destroyed, he wouldn’t let everyone at Kingsman be killed –

“Gawain, you fucking _bring down that missile –”_

From Merlin’s end of the connection, Harry heard an explosion.

 

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last thing Harry heard from Merlin was an explosion. Harry's not sure if he just witnessed the fall of Kingsman or not, but before he can deal with the aftermath of the mission, he, Roxy, and Eggsy need to get out of the complex. This proves to be more difficult than any of them anticipated.

HARRY

 

The explosion brought on shock, an empty numbness, an utter disbelief at what had just happened, followed by a sickening, nauseating wave of horror. Harry couldn’t quite believe what he had just heard, couldn’t quite bring his mind to process what had just happened, and a glance at Roxy revealed the same thing on her part. Lips pale, face white, a slight tremble to her fingers.

He couldn’t believe –

Merlin had just –

A few moments passed in stunned silence. Harry’s heart was racing, shock and terror winding their way through him, seizing his muscles, blocking his thoughts. The explosion sounded too quiet to have been right by Merlin’s mic, but Merlin’s tech, always considerate of every little detail, could just as easily have been trying to compensate by turning down the speaker volume, and there was nothing on his end except silence, and there was no red dot in the corner of his glasses telling him he was connected to HQ.

“Merlin,” Harry tried hoarsely anyway. “Merlin, are you there?”

Still, silence.

No. Merlin wasn’t – Merlin couldn’t be – after everything he had already survived –

“Merlin,” Harry tried again.

“Merlin, for fuck’s sake,” Roxy said, and her voice was shaking. Her composure was wrecked, for the first time Harry had ever seen.

Again, silence.

And then the familiar red dot, a brief crackle of static, and Merlin’s voice was like something heaven sent. “We’re fine; Lancelot, you can step back. Gawain shot the missile down just a mile up from where we are, and the building sustained some minor damage from the debris. We’ll keep scanning the surroundings in case he sends any more at us. I apologize for the delay; the explosion caused quite a bit of interference with the signal as well, but we should be fine now.”

Harry felt almost weak in the knees with relief. Beside him, Harry saw the tension leave Roxy’s shoulders, and she dropped the gun from Ross’s temple.

“I think we have everything we need from him,” Merlin continued. Harry could hear commotion in the distance, but none of it sounded frantic. “He knows our location, and we can’t undo that. But I think I’ve managed to lock onto the signals of all of his other agents out in the field and we’re organizing people to go after them now. He’s served his use.”

A fierce satisfaction flooded Harry’s body. “Excellent, Merlin. Permission to kill?” Harry asked, and he saw a stunned look cross Ross’s face.

Merlin gave a harsh laugh. “Permission granted.”

Ross recovered quickly, and for a man staring death in the face he seemed remarkably unfazed. “Oh, so you’re killing me now,” he said, almost mildly. “Ah, well, I suppose that’s understandable, considering what I did to Eggsy over there.”

Anger tightened Harry’s grip on his gun. “You will never touch him again,” he hissed, and he raised his gun, pointed it at Ross’s face. He was _so ready_ to kill him now, to put a bullet between his eyes, and his finger tightened on the trigger. But –

He glanced back at Eggsy. A question, an offering. _Ross’s life is not mine to take._

Eggsy swallowed. A muscle jumped in his jaw as he walked forward, each step slow, deliberate. Harry kept his gun raised, but he stepped back. He could see the iciness of the boy’s gaze, saw the way he steeled himself against the pain and the fear and the trauma of all of the memories he had associated with this man, but he didn’t stop until he was standing in front of the man that had done it all to him.

Eggsy drew his gun and pointed it at Ross’s head.

“It was you,” he said, and his voice shook with emotion but his hands were steady. “I saw you. I could’ve killed you. I _should’ve_ killed you. _A329-0_.” He let out a harsh laugh. “But I guess I did, in the end, givin’ Kingsman that password I saw you type in. That gave them all the shit they needed to get here. Even if you planned it all, even if you prepared to take us down, you still failed. Not so high and mighty now, are we?”

_Take us down._

_Us._

Affection flew through Harry’s chest, lifting his heart on golden wings.

Ross almost smirked. “My, my. I’ve never seen you so emotional. I’m sorry, did I do something to you?”

Harry almost stepped forward at that, almost killed the man himself for his arrogance, but Merlin gave him a soft warning through the comms, and he resisted. Eggsy was the one Ross had hurt, not him. Not him directly, at least. And not nearly as much as he had hurt Eggsy.

Eggsy was the one who had the right to Ross’s life.

Eggsy bared his teeth. “You made me a _monster_ ,” he hissed, and he pressed the barrel of the gun to Ross’s cheek.

_Gun to his cheek. Just like the other people he was forced to kill. Just like Ross’s other victims._

Harry knew the boy was hurting. He saw how difficult this was for him. And yet, at that moment, he felt a fierce surge of pride.

“What, so _you’re_ going to kill me now?” Ross asked, and his voice was mild. “Are you really going to pull that trigger? I thought I’d taught you better. I thought you knew to stay indifferent to it all. I thought you knew to make it quick. Isn’t that what made you my favorite?” And then Ross leaned forward, pushing his cheek against the gun. “Isn’t that right, _A597-3_?”

Harry could see Eggsy flinch back despite himself.

“Stop it before it goes any further,” Merlin said warningly, just as Roxy took a step forward. “It might trigger him.”

“It won’t,” Harry said. Eggsy was strong; stronger than anyone Harry had ever known. He’d make it through this.

Ross’s lips stretched in a smile. “Come back to me then, A597-3,” he purred. “Turn back into what I made you, if you dare. Turn back into a killer. A _monster_.” He paused, blinking innocently. “Ah, but I forget. You’re too afraid to be that anymore. You’ve lost your nerve, that beautiful touch you had on the trigger. You’re too _weak_ now to do what you would’ve done before.”

There was a very long pause.

Harry held his breath.

“You’re wrong,” Eggsy said finally, and he put a bullet through Ross’s skull.

 

 

 

Harry thought that would be the end of it. They’d kill Ross, they’d find that back exit out of his bunker and make it back to the jet, and from there they would remotely detonate the bombs they’d planted in the vents along the way. But then they heard Merlin curse.

“What is it?” Harry demanded.

“I’m not sure. An alert popped up in the system; I think it’s across all the screens in the compound. It’s asking for a password.”

“A password?” Roxy frowned.

Merlin sounded frustrated. “Yes, and I have no idea what it is. I tried the one that logged me into his system, and nothing. I don’t know what else it could be, there’s nothing useful in the files, and I’m afraid of trying too many times and setting off some security setting.”

Roxy cursed. “Alright, we’ll keep looking for a back exit. Pendragon, any ideas?”

Eggsy didn’t respond; he didn’t appear to have heard the question. He’d been staring at Ross’s body ever since he’d pulled the trigger, his gaze fixed on the hole in the man’s cheek and the blood that was trickling out of it, the spatter of fresh, deep red on the ground behind the lifeless body that had slumped to the side.

“Eggsy?” Harry asked quietly.

The boy started at the sound of his name, and his eyes, when he turned his gaze to Harry, were wide and haunted.

“Any ideas about a back exit, or another password?” Harry asked.

“Oh.” Eggsy blinked a few times, and then looked down at the blood on his hands. Harry saw his face go pale, saw the trembling that started in his fingertips, saw the way his chest heaved with fast, harsh, panicked breaths.

Instantly, Harry was at his side. “Eggsy,” he murmured. He touched the boy’s shoulder and a moment later felt him lean into his touch. “Eggsy, it’s alright. You did what needed to be done, and if you hadn’t, one of us would have. But we need you to focus now, and tell us anything you might know. Anything else you might remember.”

Eggsy blinked again, and then his eyes slid back into focus. “Right,” he said, and the color returned to his face, the set came back to his shoulders. He was focused on the present again. “I…I don’t know, honest. It makes sense that he’d have a back exit, I doubt he’d build somethin’ where there’s only one way in or out. But what I don’t understand is why he didn’t take that exit if he knew we were here, if he knew we was comin’ after ‘im. He could’ve sent that missile and then gotten the fuck out, but he didn’t.”

“And that means that a back exit is unlikely,” Harry said, with a feeling of dread.

“Either way, it’s not looking good,” Merlin said grimly. “The password screen has been replaced by a countdown in the system. I still don’t know what it is, but you need to get out of there _now_. It was likely triggered by Ross’s death, as if his vitals were hooked up to the system.”

“Shit. Anything that shows a back way out on your end?” Roxy asked.

“Other than one by the first storeroom we were headed to – which could still be guarded or rigged with gas, no, and we don’t have time to look. Head back out the way you came; you have less than ninety seconds before whatever this countdown leads to starts, and I have a feeling it won’t be good.”

Harry cursed again. To his enormous relief, the door to the bunker hadn’t locked behind them and swung open easily when they pushed it; he made sure Roxy and Eggsy made it out, and then he pulled the door shut behind them as they headed back up the tunnel as quickly as they could. Still, the tunnel was long, and even at almost a flat sprint it was over a minute before they saw the door at the end of it.

That’s when they heard the explosions.

“The center of the compound,” Merlin snarled. “Go straight as soon as you leave the tunnel and storeroom, and _run_. If the explosions radiate outward, going straight to go around gives you the most time to get to the exit. Lancelot, do you still have grenades?”

“Yes,” Roxy said tersely. “But just two.” The door at the end of the tunnel was locked; it took a few seconds to enter the code to unlock it, and then they headed out of the storeroom and straight down the hall as Merlin had instructed. There was smoke drifting through the halls already, and the ground shook with explosions above them that drew ever nearer.

“That’s fine,” Merlin said. “You might need them to blow the entrance. If those electromagnetic doors still have a power supply by the time you get there, they’ll still be locked, and I’m willing to bet that they have a shit-ton of holding force. If the biometric scanners are damaged, you won’t be able to get out without forcing the doors open or cutting their power.”

“Not to mention that they might have a secondary power source,” Harry said, with a feeling of dread. He glanced at Eggsy; the boy was pale, but he was keeping up.

“I know,” Merlin said. “Left here, and then right, and head up the stairs.”

Ahead of them as they rounded the corner, two of Ross’s agents turned to face them from where they were hurrying to get away from the radiating explosions. Roxy fired without hesitation, and they crumpled to the ground.

They couldn’t risk anything. Now, they would shoot to kill anyone they saw. Getting out was their first priority, and that involved taking down anyone who had even the smallest possibility of getting in their way.

The stairs were still clear when they got there; Harry could hear shouting from the floors above them, and the sound of more explosions going off.

“The stairs are nearer the center of the compound than I’d like,” Merlin said tersely, “so hurry. The explosions will be close by the time you get up to the entrance floor. I’ve been following the pattern based on the locations of the agents who have been killed in the last few moments, and I think you should just make it.”

Merlin was right; they emerged onto the ground floor in an area still clear of smoke, though Harry could feel the ground shaking, hear the explosions close behind them. They turned right towards the exit according to Merlin’s instructions and ran.

And then, just as they rounded the next bend, an explosion shattered everything to their left, smoke and fire and debris blowing out of a doorway and throwing them all to the ground.

 _Eggsy!_ The boy’s name rang in his thoughts, as if he’d shouted it – which might have happened, he didn’t know, he was too disoriented to be able to sort through what was in his mind, what all of the horrible, terrifying things were in his thoughts, and what was reality, too disoriented to understand what had happened, just a few seconds ago –

<Galahad> he saw in front of his eyes, and he realized that it was Merlin trying to reach him, that he had probably been shouting his name but Harry hadn’t responded. It took a few seconds for Harry to be able to hear again past the ringing in his ears, for him to be able to realize what had happened and react to it.

“– get up,” Merlin was saying. “And hurry.”

 _Eggsy_. Harry looked around in a panic, fearing the worst, fearing that his nightmares would come true because that was an _explosion_ they’d just lived through, but then his eyes found Eggsy already pushing himself to his feet.

“Galahad,” Merlin said. “Galahad, can you hear me?”

“Y-yes,” Harry managed, and coughed on the smoke that was billowing out around them. “Yes, I can hear you.”

“Lancelot? Pendragon? Is everyone alright?” Merlin demanded.

“Alright enough,” Roxy said immediately. “Wait – fuck, my glasses – the visual connection is flickering, I’m sure you can see it. I don’t know how long it will hold up. The scanning is going as well.”

“Keep moving,” Harry snapped; he was already on his feet, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. Eggsy gripped his arm, giving it a squeeze and then letting go.

“How are you?” Harry asked, adrenaline making his voice harsher than intended.

But Eggsy didn’t notice; his face was set in determination, even if a bit pale, even if spots on his cheeks were black with ash and charcoal. “Like Roxy; alright enough.”

They were all accounted for, and they were all alright. They needed to move.

The explosions were getting closer, and they kept getting closer no matter how fast they ran. Harry could hear Ross’s other agents, screaming, shouting, trying to figure out what was going on in the chaos.

He tried not to think about the fact that they would all die.

They had to keep going. They had to get out, before another explosion went off near them and knocked them off their feet, before one of them got hurt –

“Left,” Merlin said, and they made a sharp turn.

“Harry –”

It was Eggsy’s voice, and Harry felt his blood run cold. He turned just in time to see the boy stumble as they rounded the corner, hands pressed against himself, and rushed back to catch him in his arms.

“What’s wrong? Are you injured?” He could stop his voice from shaking, couldn’t stop the tide of images that rushed behind his eyes. Eggsy’s body broken and bleeding, his life draining away through bullet holes that pierced even the Kingsman suit, his bones cracked and shattered. It was nauseating how much of that nightmare Harry had already seen. But he couldn’t let himself get overwhelmed by it, not now, not when Eggsy needed him.

Eggsy shook his head. “No,” he gasped, even as he doubled over and sank to his knees. “Just – hurts. The explosion and runnin’ couldn’t have been good for the – ah. Fuck.” He broke off with a hiss.

“Alright, just relax. I’ve got you,” Harry soothed, even though his chest tightened at the knowledge that the boy had to be in a significant amount of pain to have called out to him, to be admitting a weakness, to be making them stop now, when it was so important that they get out. “Lancelot,” he said through his glasses. “Lancelot, you said you brought painkillers –”

“In the jet,” Roxy said, and Harry could hear the tension in her words. Merlin’s voice was a constant in the background, telling them where to go and how to turn based on their position in the complex.

“No. Not now,” Eggsy interrupted through gritted teeth, as the ground shook with the force of one of Ross’s bombs several floors above. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

“I…alright. But lean against me. It’s not too far now.”

“I can do it –”

“Nonsense,” Harry said gently, taking the boy’s arm and slinging it over his shoulder. “We’ll get there faster if you let me help you.” And there was no need to emphasize the importance of getting out as fast as they could; already, the smoke was catching up to them, burning their eyes, making it hard to breathe. Harry slipped a hand around Eggsy’s waist to support him and hoisted him up, doing his best not to think about the boy’s body pressed in a hot, hard line against his own, about the way the boy’s arm tightened around him.

They cut a sharp left towards the exit of the compound; Harry could hear the explosions behind them, getting nearer and nearer as the bombs detonated in a pattern radiating out from the central source.

They had to move faster. And Eggsy was trying, Harry knew he was, but he was limping and he was in pain and Harry could feel the way the boy’s fingers dug into his shoulder, could hear the way his breath rasped in his throat with each step,

“Fuck, Galahad, I’ve lost visual,” Roxy said from where she was leading the way up ahead. “Might be a good idea to switch; I can’t transmit or scan for anything right now.”

Harry cursed. “Alright. Eggsy, are you –”

“I’m fine,” Eggsy said tersely. “Go.”

Roxy had already dropped back. She slung Eggsy’s other arm over her shoulders and gave Harry a quick, terse nod; Harry took the lead.

Several of Ross’s agents burst into the hall ahead of them. They paid no mind to the Kingsman agents behind them, too bent on getting out of the burning complex themselves to care about taking out intruders, to care about the possibility that Ross – who they couldn’t know was dead yet – would punish them for leaving the compound without permission. Harry steeled himself, raised his weapon, and gunned them down as they ran.

Behind them, the ground shuddered and began to crack.

“Shit!” Merlin exclaimed. “Alright, you’re almost there. Make a right down the very next hall and you should see the electromagnetic doors. _Hurry_ , all of you, the explosions are weakening the infrastructure so if the heat and smoke from the explosions don’t kill you, the collapse of the mountain will. The top floors of the compound are already falling in on themselves.”

“Are the doors open?” Harry demanded, as they turned right down the hall that would lead them to the entrance.

Merlin sounded tense. “I don’t know. The system won’t show me – I think everything is down. Everything in the building to your left has been damaged; I think tech is completely fried.”

“I have another grenade if we need it,” Roxy said from behind Harry.

“But I’m assuming the doors are open,” Merlin said; part of his sentence was drowned out by a roar of flame and the sound of splintering glass and cracking concrete behind them. “If the system is damaged this badly, there’s a chance that power will cut and let the front doors swing open.”

But even if the power did go out here, if the electromagnetic doors were connected to a remote, secondary power source, they would remain powered and therefore locked, Harry knew. They all knew.

They just had to run and hope.

 

 

 

By some miracle, they made it out. The power cut just as they reached the entrance and the doors slid open when Harry pulled on the handles; if there was a secondary power supply, it must have also already been destroyed by the time they got there.

The jet was hovering at the entrance as they stumbled forwards through the rest of the short cave tunnel, already cracking and disintegrating beneath their feet. The mountain crumbled, the rope descended from the belly of the jet, and the jet lifted them away as soon as all six hands were on it. Once in the air, the mechanical gears inside the jet began to grind, pulling the rope back up into the body of the jet, Harry, Roxy, and Eggsy with it.

Below them, just before the gears closed the hole in the floor of the jet, the side of the mountain blew out into the valley below, and the side of the mountain above the resulting gaping hole began to crack and cave in, taking tonnes of snow and stone with it. Within moments, the entire bunker had been swallowed by the earth.

A few seconds later and they would have been swallowed with it.

Roxy let out a shaky breath. A few minutes passed in quiet, utterly silent except for the hum of the jet’s engine and the stunned, exhausted breathing of three people who had narrowly escaped death.

“Right,” Merlin said finally, and he sounded slightly stunned. “Well done, you three.”

A few more minutes of silence.

“Let’s get you into a chair,” Harry said to Eggsy after a while, when he felt like he could speak again, and immediately felt a surge of guilt, a flash of panic, that he hadn’t checked in earlier and made sure he was alright, that he was comfortable, that he was safe. The boy was was laying on his back on the ground and hadn’t said a word, but he turned to face Harry when he spoke and his eyes were clear.

In the back of Harry’s mind was a thrum of relief. Eggsy was awake, and he was alert; nothing like the slurred, confused mess he’d been a month ago when he’d been bleeding to death in Harry’s arms. That was behind them now; Ross was dead. His bunker, his compound, were destroyed. His agents, the organization itself, had been taken down with it, and the few agents he still had out in the world were being taken down at that very moment.

It was over.

Oh, _God_ , it was over.

But he couldn’t celebrate, not yet, not while Eggsy was still injured, not when neither of them had healed from what Ross had done. Not while Eggsy was hurt because of what had happened in the compound, not while Eggsy still suffered from what it had taken to bring down the man who had brought him and so many others so much pain.

“Yeah,” Eggsy said after a few moments. “I reckon a chair’s gotta be more comfortable than the ground, yeah?”

“Yes, I think so,” Harry said with a small smile. He moved next to the boy, supporting him as he sat up with a wince and a bit-off curse. “Gently now, love. We’ll just head over to those seats in the back, alright?”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said stiffly; he stood, leaning heavily on Harry for support, and limped to the back of the main cabin of the jet where eight off-white leather seats sat arranged in groups of four on each side of the aisle.

Somewhere Harry’s mind wasn’t quite focused; he could hear Merlin and Roxy talking about the glasses, could hear Merlin checking in to make sure the glass hadn’t shattered and cut her, making sure that she was alright after the explosion.

“Shit,” Eggsy hissed, settling himself gingerly down into the seat at the back of the jet. Harry adjusted the angle, lowering the back of the seat so as to allow the boy to lay down more comfortably, and knelt on the ground beside him.

“Is this alright?” he asked softly.

“Y-yeah,” Eggsy mumbled. He winced, and Harry didn’t miss the paleness of his lips, nor the way his fingertips trembled where they lay over the armrests. His eyelids fluttered closed; pale, delicate pink like the morning sky, drawing a curtain over the brilliant green of his eyes.

Emotion surged through him. If he lost Eggsy again –

No. He wouldn’t.

“Medical analysis?” he heard Roxy say quietly.

“Already on it,” Merlin replied through their glasses; he was responding to everyone. “Shouldn’t take more than another minute or so, I have Medical taking a look at the feed now.”

Harry drew a slightly unsteady breath. He dared to slip a hand over Eggsy’s, closing his fingers around the thin wrist, feeling the faint, fluttering pulse in his veins. He felt Eggsy’s hand twitch in response, twisting around to curl his fingers into Harry’s palm, and Harry felt a lightness in his chest at the boy’s touch.

“How are you?” Harry asked quietly.

Eggsy’s eyes flickered open. “Better now that we’re not movin’ around.” His fingers tightened, nails pressing gently into Harry’s palm. “Don’t worry about me, yeah? I’ll be alright.”

“If there’s anything I can do – Advil, Tylenol –”

“Morphine,” Roxy interjected from the front of the jet where she was trying to fix her glasses. “I’ve got some up here, thought it would be a good idea to bring it along just in case something happened.” Harry heard a hiss of frustration. “Shit. Sorry Merlin, I can’t get visual transmission back on. You’ll have to take a look at it when we get back.”

Eggsy huffed a laugh; it was a little stiff, to avoid moving around too much, but Harry’s heart leapt at the sound nevertheless. “Morphine, really? Ain’t that a little overkill?”

“If you’re in pain –” Harry started.

“I’m fine, really.” Eggsy took a deep breath and closed his eyes again. “Just need to rest a bit is all. A few days an’ I’ll be good as new. Promise.”

 _You don’t even know what’s wrong with you_. But Harry couldn’t say that. He couldn’t argue with Eggsy, not now, not when he already found it so difficult to be vulnerable. Because –

 _I’m scared_ , he would’ve said. That’s what the Eggsy-before-Ross would’ve said, because he _was_ scared. As much as Ross had hurt him, Harry could still see parts of him from before. He could see the fear that thinned the boy’s lips, feel the anxiety that quickened the heartbeat in his wrist. And he hated that he couldn’t do anything about it.

“I promised,” Eggsy murmured, with a faint smile. “I promised, remember? That I would be safe and that I’d make it back okay. An’ I’m not going to break that promise.”

“You rest, then,” Harry said, gently. He felt more than heard the revving shift of the jet’s engines, the slight jolt that meant they had gained enough altitude to clear all the mountain peaks ahead of them and were moving forward now instead of up. Within a few minutes they would be up at cruising altitude, headed back to London, away from Ross forever.

“Anythin’ yet, Merlin?” Eggsy asked. His words were slightly slurred, and Harry’s heart jumped in his chest, his hands tightening around Eggsy’s in anxiety. But Eggsy shook his head. “Nah, bruv, just tired. Not goin’ into shock or nothin’, don’t worry.”

Harry watched him for a few moments, fear nagging at the back of his mind, but Eggsy seemed otherwise unchanged. He could hear Merlin typing at his computer; the faint clicks of the keys were just loud enough to be picked up by the glasses, but they paused as he spoke. “There’s not much they can tell just based on the feed, to be honest, but Kay did say it doesn’t look immediately life-threatening. Nothing to indicate that you’re going to go into shock or collapse at any moment, but I’ll have her take a look at you as soon as you land anyway. It might be helpful for you to describe what you’re feeling just so she has a better idea.”

“Right. Thank you.” Harry resisted the urge to reach up and smooth the hair back from the boy’s forehead. “So how do you feel? Shortness of breath, anything that might mean you have –”

“Bleedin’ in the lungs, yeah, I know.” Eggsy swallowed. “I don’t think so; at least nothin’ bad right now. I’d be coughin’ it up if it was, right?”

Harry gave him a small smile, trying to hide the pang in his chest at the memory of not so long ago when the boy had been doing just that. “Yes, I suppose so. Do you feel anything that might mean other internal bleeding in your abdomen?”

“Internal bleeding in –” Eggsy broke off, looking suddenly tense. “Well, that’s…that’s bruisin’, innit?”

“Yes, sometimes,” Harry said gently.

Eggsy clenched his jaw. “I dunno. We…we should probably check, then, yeah?” he asked, and his voice was small, almost frightened. As if he didn’t want Harry to see.

Scars, Harry remembered. The surgeons had said that the boy had been covered in them.

After what Ross had done to him, it would have been surprising if he weren’t.

“Oh, darling,” Harry murmured, giving the boy’s hand a gentle squeeze. “It’s alright. I know.”

Eggsy seemed unable to meet Harry’s gaze. He winced, shifting uncomfortably, his grip on Harry’s hand tightening, and Harry felt his own belly clench in sympathy. Eggsy swallowed again, and with his free hand undid the buttons of the Kingsman suit jacket and pulled it aside. He fumbled with the buttons on the shirt; seeing the tremble in his touch, Harry reached out hesitantly.

“Let me?” Harry asked quietly. “I promise I won’t touch you.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Roxy make her way quietly out of the main cabin.

He saw the boy’s hesitation, the sudden quickening of his pulse in his throat. After a long moment, he nodded, and his trembling hand dropped back down to rest at his side.

Harry undid the buttons, doing his best not to think about the heat of the boy’s thigh against his ribs and the way it seemed to press into him. He tugged the white cotton out from where it was tucked under Eggsy’s trousers; a faint tremor ran along the boy’s body and he felt the muscles in his thigh tighten.

“Relax, love,” Harry murmured. “You’re alright.” He carefully drew the sides of Eggsy’s shirt aside, letting out a soft hiss as he saw the faint bruise over the upper right side of the boy’s abdomen.

“Is it bad?” Eggsy asked. His voice was tight.

Harry shook his head, even as his heart clenched at the obvious pain the boy was in. “It’s mostly around one of the points of entry; the blast might have pulled at some of the stitching in the muscle layer which is causing the bruised appearance. Superficial bleeding, I’d say, and it could have been a lot worse. You’ll be fine.”

“I told you,” Eggsy said quietly. It was supposed to be lighthearted but he seemed tense, and Harry drew the sides of the boy’s shirt back together, closing the walls back up around him, wrapping him back up in the cocoon of safety he’d made for himself, and tried not to think about the boy’s scars.

And then Eggsy let out a soft hiss of pain, his body tensing, bringing his hand up to his chest.

“Shh,” Harry murmured, barely able to resist the urge to reach out to him. “Just breathe, love, alright? Take it easy.”

“Hurts to breathe too deeply,” Eggsy muttered. His eyes were squeezed shut. “Fuck.”

“Gently,” Harry said softly. “You’ll be alright. I’ve got you.”

Eggsy reached out and took Harry’s hand in his free one, his grip tight with pain. “I know,” he whispered, and his voice was raw, honest, unbelievably vulnerable. “I know I’ll be okay with you.”

Harry’s breath caught in his throat. _You nearly weren’t last time. Last time you were shot because of me. Last time you bled in my arms, no matter what I did, because I was helpless, because I didn’t know how to save you. Last time you almost died._

Eggsy’s words were loud in his thoughts. _It’s alright, love._

“Do you need anything?” he asked gently, instead of saying what would only hurt both of them. “Painkillers, tea, water, anything?”

Eggsy shook his head. “Just…just stay here with me. For a bit.” He swallowed. The plane shuddered with turbulence and Harry felt the boy’s hand tighten over his own, saw his eyes flutter shut, heard the hitch in his breathing.

“He’s pale,” Merlin said quietly through the glasses, and Harry knew he was speaking only to him. “He’s in pain – physically, mentally.”

<How long until we land?>

“Not long, about another hour.”

<Do you need us for debriefing immediately?>

Merlin paused. “No,” he said after a few moments. “I think, given his current condition, it can wait for a little bit. At least until Medical had checked him out and given us an idea of what happened. I’ll call you in separately if it takes longer for him to settle back in than anticipated and he can’t make it to the meeting.”

“Harry,” Eggsy murmured, and Harry’s attention jolted back to the boy. “Harry, I’m fine. Don’t worry a bit about me, yeah? Promise?”

“Worrying is one of my favorite pastimes,” Harry said with a small smile.

Eggsy huffed a laugh; stiff, pained. “No wonder you’ve got grey hair.”

“At least I’ve _got_ hair,” Harry mused, and then he was serious again. “Really, Eggsy, is there nothing more I can do?”

The boy swallowed, and a faint shudder ran down the length of his body. His thigh pressed harder, briefly, against Harry’s chest. “I…actually, can you…would you mind distractin’ me? It’s just…the memories, y’know. An’ after what I did to Ross, even if I wanted to, even if I _needed_ to, I…” He trailed off.

“Right. Yes, of course.” But Harry hesitated. There wasn’t much to his life outside of Kingsman, really, now that he thought about it. It was a constant job, and one that he’d held for the past few decades, and the last few months had been dedicated to the mission to get Garlon and Ross. There wasn’t much he could say that wasn’t classified or that Eggsy didn’t already know, not much that couldn’t somehow be tied back to Ross and the mission they had just completed. Not much that would bring back memories of the last two years; the very thing he was trying to avoid doing.

“I remember my first honeypot,” Eggsy said, when Harry didn’t speak for a few moments. Harry was grateful for it; he hadn’t been sure what the boy felt was alright to talk about, and he hadn’t wanted to bring up something that would do more harm than good.

“Oh?” Harry smiled.

Eggsy huffed a laugh, and then winced. “I mean, it wasn’t really a honeypot,” he said. “No, I’m fine, really, stop fussin’ over me. I’m okay.” He nudged Harry’s chest gently with his knee, being careful not to push too hard on the ribs that he knew were newly healed. “You worry too much about me.”

Harry hummed. “Yes, I suppose.” He reached out hesitantly, slipping his hand onto the knee Eggsy had pressed against his chest. The boy froze for a moment and Harry almost withdrew, but then Harry felt him relax, felt him almost push into his touch.

“As I was sayin’, it wasn’t really a honeypot,” Eggsy said. “It was right when you woke up after you took out – what was his name? Professor Arnold?”

“Ah, yes. And the explosion.”

“You’re daft, you are, you know that?” Eggsy said with a grin. “Always puttin’ your life on the line. Gets me worried too, you know. I almost lost it that time when I heard you was in the hospital with a concussion an’ broken bones an’ that you hadn’t woken up. Wouldn’t stop worryin’ about you, when you didn’t wake up for the next few weeks neither. Did everythin’ I could to make you proud, an’ I was determined to be the one to complete that honeypot. Except then you knocked me up on Rohypnol and tied me to the train tracks.” He laughed again, a little stiffly, and Harry chuckled and rubbed a soothing circle into the inside of Eggsy’s knee.

“You made me proud,” Harry murmured, and he didn’t miss the way the boy’s breath caught at the movement of his thumb, at the way the boy’s gaze flashed to his face, flickered briefly down to his lips. “I was…I didn’t expect anything less of you, on the tracks,” Harry continued. “I knew full well that you would pass with flying colors.”

“You did, did you?” Eggsy’s grin widened, and Harry could hear a note of nostalgia in the boy’s voice. “How?”

 _The same way I knew you wouldn’t give us away to Ross._ But Harry wouldn’t say that. He wouldn’t say Ross’s name, not now, not so soon after.

“Because of your father,” Harry said instead. “Because he was a good man, and I knew you were too. Because you didn’t betray me to Dean. I’ve always had a good feeling about you, Eggsy, and you never gave me any reason to think otherwise.”

Eggsy hesitated; Harry knew he wanted to protest, to ask Harry about the whole two years he’d been with Ross doing the very opposite of everything he believed in, but then a small smile lightened his features. “Tell me more about Mr. Pickle. An’ your butterfly collection.”

“Ah.” A smile spread itself across Harry’s face too, and he tried not to think too much about the change of topic, on how he knew it was because they had been straying too close to something that would cause Eggsy pain. “What about them?”

“Why’d you name ‘im Mr. Pickle?” Eggsy looked amused. “That’s not the sort of name I’d expect a posh gentleman to name his dog. An’ why him? A tiny little dog like that is hardly practical for a Kingsman agent, innit?”

“Well, no,” Harry admitted, “but he was rather cute, and I must say I’ve aways had a bit of a soft spot for small dogs. I named him Mr. Pickle because it seemed fitting for him at the time, I suppose, he made things a bit difficult for me at times. Not unlike you, I think; Merlin told me a bit about your adventures with JB,” he added with a smile. “The way he refused to run and how you were forced to carry him tucked inside your vest, the way he was always on your lap during meetings instead of sitting on the ground beside you as everyone else expected.”

Eggsy huffed a laugh; his gaze flickered to his right, out the window of the jet where the mountains were flying by below them and the clouds glided through the air like giant fluffy swans on a mirror-flat lake. “Yeah. It was all true, too.” He looked back at Harry; his gaze was a little clearer, a little lighter now that his mind was taken off of what they had just done, where he had just been. “You train ‘im good?”

“He was excellent, when he wasn’t being stubborn,” Harry remembered fondly. “A quick and eager student when he wanted to be, though part of me thinks it was because I was always a bit heavy handed on his treats. And he was a very food-motivated dog, mind you. He’d do anything for a good snack. Offer him a bit of chicken or liver and suddenly he was the brightest dog who ever lived – otherwise, you’d be hard-pressed to get him to even leave the bed if he didn’t want to.”

“Like JB,” Eggsy said with a soft laugh.

Harry echoed the boy’s laugh and felt a lightness in his heart. “Yes, like JB.”

Eggsy met his gaze. There was something Harry thought he saw, something unreadable there under the happiness and laughter of the moment, something Harry was afraid to think too much about, for fear that it was something Harry wanted desperately to see, so desperately that he was just imagining it.

He thought it looked a bit like affection.

“And your butterflies?” Eggsy asked quietly. “What about those?”

“Ah.” The bittersweet taste of nostalgia brushed against Harry’s memory. “I wanted to be a lepidopterist, when I was young. A bit younger than you are now, actually. But I joined the army instead. Became an officer. From there, Kingsman found me. But I’ve always kept my interest in butterflies.”

“I figured, yeah,” Eggsy murmured. “You ever have any time to study ‘em now, though?”

Harry shook his head. “The world always needs saving,” he said. “Or if not the whole world, always at least someone out there. And it’s my duty to respond to that, to do everything I can to help.”

There was a hint of amusement in the boy’s eyes. “You’re a wonderful man, Harry, you know that?” he said quietly, almost absentmindedly, and Harry had the feeling that the words had slipped out.

“Thank you,” Harry said with a soft smile. “I hope you know I think the same of you.”

Eggsy looked away and didn’t respond.

“You ever wonder what it would be like to have a normal life?” Eggsy asked, after a while. “Normal, like, none of this spy stuff. No secrets, no lies, no riskin’ your life every day. Doing somethin’ that ain’t going to affect the rest of the world.”

“Sometimes, I suppose, yes,” Harry said.

Eggsy glanced at him. “Are you ever jealous of people who have a normal life?”

Harry hesitated. “Yes, I am, sometimes,” he said truthfully after a pause. “I think it’s hard not to be, when a normal life seems so easy in comparison. So stress-free, so innocently oblivious to all of the shit that goes down all around them. But at the same time…” He trailed off, and when he spoke again, the words slipped out from between his lips. “If I had led an ordinary life, I wouldn’t have joined Kingsman. I wouldn’t have met Merlin, I wouldn’t have met your father, I wouldn’t have met you. And even if I would meet different people each time, I would live a thousand non-ordinary lifetimes over again if it meant I would know you just once.”

Eggsy was silent for a long time after that. Harry was afraid he had gone too far, that he had said too much, but then the smallest of smiles, a little incredulous, crossed his face. “You really think that highly of me?”

“Yes.” Harry’s answer was immediate, his voice resolute.

There was a bit of pain in Eggsy’s expression behind everything else, and it didn’t entirely have to do with his wounds. “You…you really meant it when you said you loved me.” The plane shuddered on turbulence again, and his face tightened at the jarring movement. Harry felt the boy’s thigh tense under his palm.

“Yes.” Harry watched the boy’s expression. “Yes, I meant it.” The boy’s eyes were closed now. “We’re almost there, Eggsy,” he said quietly, when he saw the boy swallow against the pain, saw him bring his arms up and wrap them around himself, heard the shuddering exhale that slipped out as a hiss from behind clenched teeth. “Just a bit longer. And we have painkillers if you want them.”

Eggsy swallowed again. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Yeah, I think I’ll take you up on that.”

 

 

 

Eggsy was subdued as Harry found the vein in his left arm and eased the tip of the needle into it. The brief light and laughter of earlier had vanished; there was something on his mind that nothing could chase away for long.

Harry didn’t ask him what it was. In time, if Eggsy trusted him and wanted him to be the one to hear it, Eggsy would bring it up in his own.

“I saw the screen,” Eggsy said, as Harry finished injecting the morphine into his arm and disposed of the needle.

Harry’s heart skipped a beat, and he wondered if this is what it was that Eggsy had been thinking about. “Sorry?”

“I saw the screen,” Eggsy repeated. “When I saw him type in that password.”

Harry was silent. He felt frozen now, struck into stillness by the boy’s words.

“That’s why I didn’t want you to…that’s why I didn’t want to know what you found when you got into the system,” Eggsy said. “Because I saw a bit of it, and I was…I didn’t understand what it all was, but what I saw scared me. An’ I didn’t…I was too scared to confirm it, before. But now…I don’t think I can hide from it anymore.”

Still, Harry didn’t speak. His heart beat out a mantra in his chest, _he knows he knows he knows –_

Eggsy swallowed; Harry could see the boy’s hands fisting on the armrests, veins and tendons standing out in sharp relief against pale skin. “Harry,” he said, and his voice was shaking. “Harry, I wasn’t just helping him kill people for their money, was I?”

Harry’s immediate reaction was to protect him. “Eggsy –”

“Don’t lie to me, Harry, please,” Eggsy interrupted, and he couldn’t meet Harry’s eyes. “I need to know.”

 _I don’t want to hurt you._ And yet, keeping the truth from him, lying to him, would hurt him more.

“Please,” Eggsy whispered, and Harry knew he had to tell him the truth.

“Ross was after power, Eggsy,” Harry said quietly, finally. He spoke slowly, trying to give Eggsy enough time to process what he’d heard before Harry said anything more. “He wanted to bring down...well, the whole world, really. That’s what he started doing about ten years ago, killing people for their money so he could buy resources and start funding into building a safe house – the bunker. One from which he could control his organization. One that could withstand nuclear missiles, for when the more powerful nations got wind of what he was doing and tried to take him out. One that was self-sustaining, so he could live beyond the ruins of any destruction he’d created and rise again, because he knew it was inevitable that people would try to kill him. That’s what he wrote, in the files.” He paused, letting the words sink in, watching confusion, and then horror, and then guilt express himself in the brilliant green of the boy’s eyes.

“We took him down before he could start that part of his plan,” Harry continued gently. “Before he could take out governments, even though he got close. I don’t think he expected to have to face something like Kingsman, even if he knew about us and who we were, and he certainly didn’t expect someone like you, with your bravery and your loyalty. You have to understand that he was using you, Eggsy,” Harry said, as pain flashed across the boy’s face. “You had no way of knowing.”

“That’s what Ross meant when he was talking about what he wanted to do,” Eggsy said, and Harry could hear the horror in his voice. “Back at the bunker. That’s what he was talking about when he asked you if world peace was really that bad.”

Harry hesitated, and then nodded. “Yes. But Eggsy…I want you to understand that you couldn’t have known, and that you did everything you could to keep your family safe. He manipulated you.”

“That doesn’t change what I did,” Eggsy said quietly.

“Perhaps not,” Harry admitted. “But perhaps it can change what you feel about it. It truly wasn’t your fault, Eggsy, and in the end it was only because of you that we were able to bring him down.”

“I lead you into a trap,” Eggsy bit out. He was agitated, and it was hurting him.

“And you lead us to Ross, and you took him down,” Harry reminded him gently. “You can’t blame yourself for something out of your control.” He paused, giving the boy’s thigh a gentle squeeze. “Just rest now, alright? Focus on getting better. We can worry about everything else later.”

Eggsy swallowed and looked out the window. There was pain glistening in his eyes and his face was tight, and Harry didn’t think he believed anything he’d just heard about it not being his fault. The boy was, at his heart, at the very fibre of his being, kind. His very nature was to want to do good, and his soul was made of gold and the stuff of angels.

Harry knew it would take time before the boy would be able to forgive himself.

He knew that it could take a lifetime.

He knew that, if Eggsy allowed it, he would be with him every step of the way.

 

 

 

The boy fell asleep soon after the dose of morphine kicked in, about fifteen minutes after it had been administered. Harry let him sleep, waking him only after they had landed so he could walk to Medical and have them take a look at his old wounds.

He was fine, Medical said after half an hour of scanning and questioning and monitoring his face for pain when light pressure was applied to the wounds. He would just have to take it easy for a few days, let the pulled stitches heal again, and he would make a full recovery.

“I told you,” Eggsy said after that, with a small smile, but even the Harry could see the pain behind it, pain that came from his wounds and pain that came from his own mind.

Harry hated it, that the boy felt guilt over something out of his control, that the boy felt guilt over something he had done to protect his family.

He’d saved his family. He’d kept them all safe. And in the end, he’d taken down Ross, and he’d kept the rest of the world safe too.

For Eggsy, that still wasn’t enough.

Eggsy returned to the dorms after Medical cleared him to leave and after the mission debrief with Merlin and Arthur. Arthur, for one, had looked impressed at what Eggsy had done. Eggsy had done his best to meet the old man’s gaze, and even when he did, Harry saw guilt in his expression, as if he didn’t believe himself worthy of thanks, worthy of praise.

Merlin wanted to speak to Eggsy alone after the debrief. The boy was nervous at that; Harry could see that too. But Merlin held Harry’s gaze over the boy’s shoulder.

Merlin would take care of him.

Eggsy would be fine.

“Go an’ get some rest, Harry,” Eggsy said, when he turned and saw Harry’s hesitation. “I’ll be alright. I’ll see you in the morning.”

 

 

 

 _I’ll see you in the morning_.

It became their goodnight, the next three days. Eggsy insisted that Harry go home overnight, that he sleep in a proper bed, and Harry did, because Eggsy asked him to.

He thought he would do anything Eggsy asked him to. It was a dangerous position, for a Kingsman, but if any trouble came of it, he would worry about it when it came.

 

 

 

Eggsy stayed in the recruit dorms overnight and for most of the day as well, when he wasn’t getting a meal or wandering around the grounds. Harry left him alone for most of the days, knowing that he might appreciate time and space away from everyone else, from any reminder of what had just happened. But Harry stopped by at nightfall each day, wanting to check in on the boy, wanting to offer to stay if the boy needed him to.

He’d just come back from a place of nightmares, after all.

“Thanks,” Eggsy mumbled, as Harry sat down on the bed across from the boy’s. The boy himself was sitting on his own bed, his back up against the wall and his gaze fixed on the wall across the room. “Thanks,” he said again, after a pause. “For comin’ by again, I mean. Checkin’ in on me so often. I know it’s been a few days since it all happened.”

“Anytime,” Harry murmured. “Whenever you need me.”

There was a silence.

“So how are you?” Harry ventured. They hadn’t really spoken of the mission the past few days, not since the debrief. Harry had mentioned it in passing a few times, giving the boy the chance to talk if he wanted to, but he had never pressed him to.

Eggsy shrugged. “‘M alright, I guess.”

“That’s good,” Harry said. Quiet.

Another few moments passed in silence, and then the boy spoke again.

“Harry?”

“Mm?”

Eggsy was silent for another while. Harry watched him; the flickering of his long, dark lashes, the muscles jumping in his jaw, the tiredness in his eyes. The way he didn’t meet Harry’s gaze and stared instead, utterly emotionless, at the wall.

And then he spoke, and his voice was flat, expressionless. Numb.

“I shot Merlin, didn’t I?”

_Shit._

Harry paused, his heart suddenly jumping in his chest. There was no good way to respond to that, no way to make it easier to hear. There was nothing he could say to make the boy feel like it hadn’t been his fault, that he was doing whatever it took to protect his family.

“That was me, wasn’t it? Who shot him?”

“Eggsy, I –” Harry broke off. He didn’t know how to continue, or even what he had meant to say.

“You can say it,” Eggsy said, and he still sounded numb. “You can’t hurt me.”

Harry felt like his chest was being crushed. “Eggsy…”

“ _Say it_ ,” Eggsy said, and his voice was sharp now, almost angry. “Just fuckin’ say it, Harry.”

Harry swallowed. The boy was wrong; Harry could hurt him. And hurting him was the last thing Harry wanted to do. “Yes,” he said finally, quietly, and just as he’d known and expected, he saw pain in the boy’s expression. “Yes, you did.”

Eggsy was silent for a long time. Harry sat in front of him, on the bed across from his, staring down at his feet. When Eggsy finally spoke, his voice was numb again. “He told me about your nightmares.”

Harry flinched, slightly.

“An’ don’t be angry,” Eggsy continued, the ghost of a smile playing around the corners of his lips. “It’s not his fault, I asked him. He didn’t really want to tell me, but I figured.”

Harry swallowed and said nothing.

“Look at me, Harry.”

Harry glanced up, uncertain. Eggsy’s expression was unreadable.

“Don’t,” he said, after a few moments.

Harry frowned. “I don’t understand,” he began.

“Don’t waste your time,” Eggsy said. “I’m not worth havin’ nightmares over.”

 _Don’t worry about me. Don’t care about me_ , he meant. _Stop loving me, and your nightmares of losing me will stop._ Harry felt like his heart was breaking, and then abruptly he was angry, because how could Eggsy not understand that he couldn’t just stop caring? How could Eggsy understand that Harry’s love for him wasn’t just something he could turn off?

“Go,” Eggsy said, and he was tired now, looking back at the wall. “Go home an’ get some sleep.”

“Will you –”

“I’ll be fine,” Eggsy said.

Harry hesitated. He wanted Eggsy to say he could come back in the morning, that Eggsy would see him again tomorrow like he had the past three days Harry hadn’t spent the nights in HQ, but Eggsy didn’t, and Harry tried to ignore the pain of his silence. He knew Eggsy couldn’t make those promises now.

“Alright,” Harry said quietly. A pause, then, “Have a good night.”

“Yeah.” Eggsy swallowed. “Yeah, you too.”

Another pause, and then Harry turned to leave.

Eggsy didn’t speak as he left.

When Harry turned around, just one last time before closing the door to the dorms, Eggsy was still sitting there motionless, expressionless, staring numbly at the wall.

 

 

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy deals with the aftermath of the mission and makes a difficult choice. Harry finds out more about what Eggsy went through with Ross.

**October 2016**

EGGSY

 

Eggsy had wanted to stay, when they had got back to Kingsman HQ after the mission. For the first week or so, he didn’t really have a choice _but_ to stay, considering the extent of his injuries and Harry’s constant hovering over him in concern; he had a feeling that Harry would have torn apart the entire countryside if he’d woken to find Eggsy gone. So he stayed in HQ, and for the first few days Harry adamantly refused to go home for anything other than to feed and walk JB. (The only reason he relented later was because Eggsy told him to go home and rest.) It was a bit strange, Eggsy thought, to have someone be so willing to spend time around him, to care for him. It was a bit scary. And it was confusing.

He’d done terrible things. He’d killed, more times than he wanted to count even though he could remember every single bullet he’d put through someone’s head (and now, he knew Merlin was among them). He’d contributed to the near-downfall of the world, and even if he hadn’t known the extent of the impact his actions had had, it had happened nonetheless. He’d loved more fiercely than he’d ever thought possible, and the man he loved had loved him back, but Eggsy had hurt him, and that was unforgiveable.

Because Harry had given him the world. He’d shown up in Eggsy’s life without warning and swept him off his feet with his elegance and his quiet strength and his kindness, and he’d pulled Eggsy away from a life of crime and mediocrity and given him a chance, given him hope. He’d made him (almost) into a gentleman, into someone who, like Harry himself, would’ve helped save the world instead of destroy it. He’d shown him what it was to love and be loved, even if they’d waited until the very last day to say it. And now, Harry was still giving him a chance – (how many chances would he give him?) – and Harry wanted him to take it; Eggsy could see it in the way the man looked at him, hear it in the gentleness of his voice and the patience of his words.

Eggsy wanted so desperately to stay.

Harry deserved so much better.

So what was more important, what a murderer wanted or what his savior deserved?

Eggsy couldn’t help but smile every time he asked himself that. The answer was obvious. The only thing that remained was for him to muster up enough fucking courage to act on it.

He was distant, then, for the next week. It wasn’t entirely intentional; he’d find himself ducking into an empty room if he saw anyone coming down the broad Kingsman corridors, or wandering outside on the property on a rainy day when everyone else was inside. He brooded, and grieved for what might have been, and raged silently against what was. He retreated into his mind and wrapped himself in his thoughts, and if anyone saw him, if anyone worried, he didn’t notice.

Yes, Harry deserved better. It would be best for Eggsy to leave. It would be better for both of them if Harry never saw him again. Harry would forget him, and he would stop loving him, and he would stop caring, and then the nightmares might stop too.

And Ross –

Well, Ross was dead. But no one even remotely like Ross would be able to use Eggsy to hurt anyone else ever again.

He stopped by Harry’s flat one evening, just to say good-bye, because it seemed only fair that they got a proper parting, at least, even if everything else was messed up. It seemed fitting, in a twisted, sad sort of way, that Harry’s flat seemed to be the place of all the hardest good-byes between them. Eggsy had his Kingsman suit draped over his left arm, zipped up in its bag, because he knew he didn’t deserve to keep it. Harry had put so much faith in him, getting him properly measured before he’d even passed his last task, getting his suit made, because Harry had believed so sincerely that he’d make it through to the end.

And now, not only had he failed the task, but he’d also spent the last two years working alongside a man who was trying to tear down the world that Kingsman worked every day to save.

He didn’t deserve the suit. It seemed only right that he return it to Harry, for Harry to do to it what he wished.

It was right after dinnertime. Harry should be home.

He pressed the doorbell, hearing the faint, warm echo of it inside the house, and a few moments later – brief moments, as if, inexplicably, Harry had been waiting – the door swung open.

“Eggsy.” His name left Harry’s lips in a soft huff. It had been a week since they’d seen each other, Eggsy realized, a week since they’d spoken, and Eggsy hadn’t offered any explanation. He was surprised Harry hadn’t worried himself sick and felt a vague sense of guilt at the thought.

“Harry.” Eggsy swallowed. “Hey.”

“Hello.” Harry sounded wary, cautious; Eggsy understood. How could he not keep his distance, when Eggsy had stayed away from him for a week without explanation and then suddenly, unexpectedly, turned up on his doorstep? What must Harry think of it? Of him?

“How are you?” Harry asked, after a bit of a pause.

“I’m –” Eggsy broke off, partly because he wasn’t sure if he wanted to answer honestly, partly because there was a gruff bark from somewhere behind Harry and the faint tapping of claws against hardwood floor. His breath left him in a soft huff.

“Ah.” Harry took a step back with a small smile, and the wrinkled, slightly-squashed face of JB emerged from a height not far off the ground behind Harry’s legs. The pug’s entire back end began wriggling with delight at the sight and smell of Eggsy and he charged forward with a series of high-pitched yips, jumping up at Eggsy’s legs and huffing with excitement.

Warmth spread through Eggsy’s chest, radiating out to his shoulders. “Hey, buddy,” he said softly, the words slipping out from between his lips before he could help it, and he found himself crouching down to scratch between the pug’s ears. The fur was soft, almost silky, though slightly coarser than when Eggsy had last kept him as his own, before –

Before Ross.

Eggsy stood, gritting his teeth. Because that’s what everything was now, wasn’t it? Before Ross, after Ross. And anything that came before him brought pain with the memory. Everything that existed before him was a constant reminder of what Ross had done to him, what Ross had taken away from him. Of what he had almost helped Ross destroy.

If he had known, would he have acted differently? Would he have let his family die, to save the world?

JB was still sniffing around his feet, whining and wiggling his butt. “He remembers me,” Eggsy said, somewhat unnecessarily. “Remembered me, I mean, even a few weeks ago when you were still – when I was still tellin’ you everythin’. Before the mission.” He swallowed. “Guess that’s a good sign, innit? That maybe I’m a little fucked up but not too fucked up that a dog can’t recognize me.”

Harry’s face softened; his eyes were warm, but sad. “He loves you, Eggsy. Of course he’d recognize you.”

“I suppose.” Eggsy bit his lip and looked away. _Do you recognize me too? Do you look at me and see the same person I used to be, or do you see someone different?_

There was a silence. Eggsy wasn’t sure what to say, what to do, where to look, and he bent down to pet the pug to avoid having to think about it.

“Come inside?” Harry asked quietly, uncertainly, as if, after Eggsy had stayed away for so long, he wasn’t sure if Eggsy wanted to be there and was afraid of the answer. Eggsy had the distinct impression that he was a cornered animal and Harry was trying not to provoke him. Or, perhaps more accurately, that he was an animal Harry was trying to tame and Harry was trying not to scare him away.

 _I should leave,_ Eggsy thought.

“Alright,” he said instead.

A bright smile split Harry’s features; it was like sunshine through clouds on a rainy day, and Eggsy felt the walls he had built around his heart begin to crumble.

 _But only to say goodbye_ , Eggsy thought, trying to be resolute. _I won’t stay any longer than that._

An hour, that was it, he told himself as he stepped over the threshold. That was all he would allow himself. Enough time to say goodbye to JB, enough time to say goodbye to Harry. Enough time to explain why he was leaving, to attempt to justify hurting Harry one last time, because it was all for Harry’s own good. He hoped Harry would see that, in time.

“I can hang it up in the closet,” Harry said, and Eggsy knew he was talking about the suit, and Eggsy knew he must be wondering why he’d brought it.

“Yeah. Thanks,” Eggsy said, and he knew Harry had heard the crack in his voice.

It was already almost dark, and as they headed into the sitting room he could see the first of the night’s stars glittering through the windows whose curtains were not yet drawn closed.

“Have you eaten?” Harry asked.

Eggsy nodded. It was a lie, but Harry didn’t need to know that. He was going to hurt Harry, and he’d already taken too much by stepping into the light of his home, by responding to the warmth of the heart Harry had opened up to him. The same heart that he would break. He couldn’t take more, couldn’t do anything more than take the bare minimum of the space Harry had chosen to share with him.

There was a silence.

“How have you been?” Harry asked, venturingly.

“I’ve been alright,” Eggsy said. His voice was subdued, his throat dry. He didn’t know where to look, so he settled for staring at the floor.

“Your wounds?”

“Fine,” Eggsy said. “A little sore is all.” He hesitated. “I know I’ve been distant. It’s just…it’s been a lot, and I needed the space.”

“I understand,” Harry murmured.

There was another silence.

“Did you have plans tonight?” Eggsy asked. “I’m sorry, I should’ve…I don’t want to bother you if you’re busy, I know you must have a lot of stuff goin’ on at Kingsman.”

“No.” A small smile crinkled the corners of Harry’s eyes. “No, I don’t have any plans.” A pause. “If you’re not otherwise engaged, you’re welcome to stay, if…if you want to.”

_I want to._

_I shouldn’t._

“I’ll stay for a bit,” Eggsy said, and Harry’s smile widened.

 

 

 

He didn’t tell Harry he was leaving. He couldn’t make himself say it out loud, couldn’t bear the thought of seeing the joy and light on Harry’s face wiped away by his words. Because Harry was happy, Eggsy could see. Harry was happy with him here, and didn’t know that Eggsy was going to leave.

It seemed cruel, to take away such happiness.

Eggsy didn’t speak much, so Harry had taken up most of the conversation. He told Eggsy of the various things that had been going on in Kingsman (staying carefully away from the subject of the mission they both had just completed) and some of the antics JB had been up to in the past two years. Kingsman was still mostly the same as it had been when Eggsy had been there, although they’d had to rebuild after Valentine had wiped out most of their senior staff – or, rather, since Percival and Merlin triggered explosions in all of the implants and Kingsman had subsequently lost most of its senior staff.

“Are you headed back to HQ for tonight?” Harry asked, a few hours later, several hours longer than Eggsy should have stayed.

Eggsy’s breath caught in his throat. He wasn’t, of course, he needed to find a place to stay that didn’t belong to Kingsman, that wasn’t anywhere _near_ Kingsman, but to tell Harry the truth would be to tell Harry that he was leaving, and he couldn’t make the words form in his mouth, couldn’t make any sound come out of his throat.

“You can stay here,” Harry said hesitantly, when Eggsy didn’t answer.

Eggsy swallowed. “Would it…would it make you happy if I stayed?”

“Only if you wanted to,” Harry said, and he was still hesitant, still uncertain.

“I…” Eggsy trailed off, paused, began again. “Are you sure? I know I came by just…without checkin’ in first, without seein’ if you were busy or not, an’ I was only going to stay for a bit and it’s already been a few hours…”

“ _Eggsy_ ,” Harry said, and there was a touch of amusement in his voice now, a faint smile curving the corners of his lips. “If I minded, I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Alright,” Eggsy said, almost without thinking, and almost immediately wanted to take it back, because it was wrong, he was saying all the wrong things, he should tell Harry what he’d come here to say and muster up the fucking courage to get up and leave like he was supposed to.

But maybe –

If it made Harry happy, maybe, just maybe, it would be worth staying. Right? It would be worth it, if he could see Harry’s eyes light up like this in the morning, if he could hear the brightness of his laughter, see the beautiful crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and the flash of his smile.

Maybe…maybe staying would be alright.

And it was just one more night. One more night couldn’t hurt.

He followed Harry upstairs about an hour later, trying not to think too hard about what he was doing, about the risk he was taking, allowing himself to be close to Harry when he’d learned that being close to someone was putting them in danger – especially here, with Harry’s home so exposed, nothing like Harry’s office or Eggsy’s recovery room back at HQ which were carefully below ground in the middle of a high-security building with no windows, not even bulletproof ones, where something or someone could get in. Especially here, where if something were to happen to Harry, there would be no one else but Eggsy to protect him, and if Eggsy had shot Merlin and tried to take down Kingsman, how could anyone rely on him to be able to protect Harry?

But Harry wanted him to stay, and he’d seen the joy in Harry’s eyes when he’d agreed to stay, even if it was just for one night. Just for tonight. So rather than think about the danger Harry could be put in from being close to Eggsy, for caring about Eggsy and for being cared about by Eggsy, Eggsy thought about the joy it brought Harry, for Eggsy to be close to him. When they reached the bedroom and settled into bed, he let himself shift closer to Harry, let their hands brush against each other, let himself be content with loving Harry.

One more night was all they had left.

One more night couldn’t hurt.

 

 

 

“Eggsy!”

The sharp cry woke him suddenly just past three in the morning; he jolted upright, heart hammering, his hand already reaching under the pillow where he found –

Nothing.

Emptiness, in place of the usual weapon he had hidden there.

His heart skipped, adrenaline flooding his body and preparing him to fight, but then his mind caught up with him and he remembered where he was. He breathed out a sigh of relief; he wasn’t back in his cell, back with Ross. He was with Harry, and Ross was dead. Eggsy had killed him, and he was safe now. There was nothing to be afraid of. Unless Harry was in trouble –

“Eggsy,” Harry gasped, and Eggsy was suddenly aware of how much Harry was trembling.

“What’s wrong?” Eggsy’s voice was hoarse with sleep; he cleared his throat. “Harry, what is it?”

Harry’s eyes were bright, wild, glancing frantically around.

“Hey.” Eggsy reached out, grasping Harry’s forearms and squeezing gently. He felt Harry’s hands scrabble at his skin, begging for stability, something solid to latch onto, and Eggsy kept his grip firm even as he fought back his own rising panic, ignored the rapid thudding of his heart. “Relax, Harry. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“He shot you –” Harry began, and then broke off.

 _Oh._ Eggsy’s breath left him in a soft huff, his eyes widening with realization. _Nightmares._

_I need to leave. I can’t let them keep happening._

“I’m alright,” Eggsy said softly. The darkness of the night and the tiredness in his bones lowered his walls, stripped away his inhibition and everything he built around himself, and he leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to Harry’s forehead even as Harry leaned into him. “It was a dream, Harry, I’m okay. See?” He took Harry’s hand and pushed it against his body, letting him feel the unbroken skin stretched tight over his ribs, smoothed taut over his belly. He felt Harry press against him, the pads of his fingers catching on the rough scars littering his body, pausing over the two small bumps that marked the old bullet holes. He heard Harry’s breath hitch; the skin was rough over the scars, but dry. No blood. No wound.

“See?” Eggsy repeated. “I’m okay. That was two months ago, and you saved me. Remember?”

“I –” Gradually, Harry’s breathing steadied, and the feverish light faded from his eyes, the shaking stopped. “Two months ago,” he said, as if in a daze.

“Yes. It’s October now, Harry. The fourteenth of October, 2016, and it’s…approximately three in the morning. You’re at home on Stanhope Mews, with me and JB.” Eggsy dared to reach out again, smoothing Harry’s hair back from his face where it had fallen; it was mussed with sleep, and a sweat-soaked strand curled out from behind his left ear. Eggsy hummed and ran his fingers through it, felt Harry whine and lean into his touch, felt him begin to relax again.

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered, and he curled into Eggsy’s body, pressing against him as if to reassure himself that Eggsy was there, sound and whole, not bleeding out on a hospital bed beyond his reach with his insides torn apart. “I’m sorry, I thought they’d stopped, but –”

“No.” Eggsy closed his eyes and held him, willed the pain in his heart to go away, willed Harry to recover and get over it all, including him, even though it hurt him to think that. “No, Harry, don’t apologize. It’s okay. Just relax now, alright? I’ve got you. We’re safe.” _And you’ll be safer when I leave._

Harry let out a shuddering breath. “Do you…do you still get nightmares, Eggsy?” he asked quietly.

Eggsy hesitated. “Yes,” he said after a moment. His voice was barely more than a whisper. “But they never wake me. I think I always freeze whenever they happen.”

Harry’s breath puffed against his skin. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you,” Eggsy whispered back, after a bit of hesitation, because what the hell, why not. What more could he lose by saying it?

Harry was pressed close to him, the heat of his body comforting, tempting Eggsy to stay. Eggsy felt the puffs of his breath against his neck, and, without thinking, ducked his chin down to press his lips against Harry’s.

He felt Harry freeze for a moment, and immediately he realized the mistake he’d made, realized how much he would regret it in the morning when he had to tell Harry that he was leaving, that what he had just done didn’t mean anything (even though in reality, to him, it meant everything), when he would have to hurt Harry again, even more than he’d meant to.

But he was kissing Harry, and he loved Harry, and Harry loved him, and Eggsy couldn’t make himself pull away. So Eggsy kept kissing him, dipping his tongue into Harry’s mouth, curling his fingers into Harry’s hair, pressing their bodies together, letting himself give into temptation as Harry kissed him back. He let a soft sigh escape his lips as Harry broke the kiss to mouth at his jaw, his neck, his chest, as Harry’s hands roamed and skimmed gently over his ribs, his back, down the curve of his arse to his thighs and what lay between.

“No,” Eggsy whispered, and the gentlest of touches on Harry’s wrist stilled his hands. “Not tonight.”

“I love you,” Harry said quietly, but he stopped. He was careful after that, kissing Eggsy gently, touching him only where he was permitted, and Eggsy’s heart ached at what he would be leaving behind.

Later, as their roaming hands drifted to a stop, as they lay still beside each other, Eggsy felt Harry’s fingers curl against his sides, pressing into him. Eggsy held him close, held him tight enough that he could feel Harry’s heartbeat against his chest. It was slightly out of sync with his own but it was steady, and it created a strange sort of syncopation that was soothing, lulling them both to sleep, and it wasn’t long after he heard Harry’s breath deepen that he himself slipped back into darkness.

There were no more nightmares that night.

 

 

 

The next morning, Eggsy woke before Harry did. He let himself be content for a moment, being alright, actually, at the feeling of Harry asleep in his arms, at the thought of Harry curled into him for comfort, at the memory of Harry’s lips pressed against his. Harry was always so strong, Eggsy thought, so put together, rarely ever betraying a crack in his composure, but underneath it all he was gentle, and loving, and really rather emotional.

Delicate.

Fragile.

It was never more obvious than now, when he was asleep. And Eggsy was too damaged, too broken, to deserve him. He’d hurt too many people, done too many things that were unforgivable. Sixty-seven too many, by killing for Ross – including Atkins. Sixty-eight, by shooting Merlin. Sixty-nine, by going on the mission to bring down Kingsman. Seventy, now, by staying and putting Harry in danger by loving him. By hurting him.

The dim sense of dread lurking in the back of his mind brought itself to the forefront of his thoughts, crowding away the brief contentment, reminding him that he should leave, that Harry deserved better, that Harry still somehow cared about him despite everything, even though everything in Eggsy’s body told him he shouldn’t.

That Harry still had nightmares about him dying.

Eggsy swallowed and stared at the ceiling, his thoughts raging with guilt, with pain, with regret.

Yes, he should leave. He _needed_ to leave. He’d thought briefly that maybe, just maybe, staying would be okay, that Harry would be happier with him here. But then the nightmares had come, and he’d realized that he’d been wrong.

As long as he was here, Harry would care about him, and as long as Harry cared about him, Eggsy could hurt him.

He couldn’t let that happen, not again. He couldn’t let someone else he loved get hurt because of him.

But it could wait, just a little longer, at least until Harry woke. Everything around him sang peace, quiet, happiness; Harry was still asleep beside him, curled towards him and one hand reached out to brush against Eggsy’s hip. He’d slept peacefully after the nightmare, his breathing deep and slow and even, and now, nothing remained to show of the torment of the night before.

This, perhaps, is what Eggsy would wake to every day, if fate had been kinder.

Eggsy would let him sleep a little longer. And when he woke, he’d explain everything.

 

 

 

“Can I talk to you?” Eggsy asked over breakfast. (Yet again, he’d delayed.)

“Of course,” Harry said, and he sounded a little confused. “About what?”

Eggsy swallowed and stared down at what was left of his breakfast; a few scraps of bacon, which Harry had said he could give to JB later if he didn’t want to finish them. “About…the last two years,” he said. “I…I’ve told you about Ross, and everythin’ about how…about the building. But in terms of what actually happened to me –” He broke off.

There was a long silence.

“Yes,” Harry said finally.

Another silence.

“Is…is right now okay?” Eggsy asked uncertainly. “I know I sort of sprung this up on you, an’ I’m sorry, I get if you want a little more time first.”

Harry paused, and then spoke. “Yes, now is alright. JB does need walking though, and I usually take him out around this time. You’re welcome to accompany me, of course, and we can talk as we walk. Or we can wait until we return; it should only be a few minutes.”

“I’ll come,” Eggsy said quietly. “And as we’re walkin’, I’ll…well, I’ll see.”

A soft smile lifted Harry’s features. “Alright, let’s head out then. You can leave the dishes on the table, I’ll take care of them when we return.”

“Not too long, yeah?” Eggsy said, remembering what he had told Harry so long ago. _Don’t walk him too long, he gets tired. Quick stroll around the block an’ that’s it._

“Not too long,” Harry agreed, still smiling. “I do try and take care of him properly, you know.”

Harry’s smile was infectious, and Eggsy felt something tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Can I hold him?” he asked quietly, uncertainly, because JB wasn’t his anymore and probably never would be again. But Harry didn’t hesitate when he responded.

“Of course.”

 

 

 

Harry was a quiet presence beside him as they walked. Like the night before, he didn’t ask how Eggsy was doing in terms of recovering from the mission, or what he had been doing in the week that he’d been distant, and for that Eggsy was grateful.

He didn’t ask Eggsy about Ross, either, didn’t prompt him to speak before he was ready, even though Eggsy had told him he’d talk about it. Because Eggsy wanted to tell him before he left, so that maybe Harry would know that it was why he was leaving him, so that maybe Harry would understand, so that maybe it would hurt him less. God knows he’d already hurt Harry enough.

He didn’t want to leave.

He couldn’t stay.

Ross’s whip cracked over his back, laying it open to bone.

“A597-3,” Eggsy said, to jolt himself out of the memory. His voice was soft, but the weight of his words shattered the silence. The sound was a distraction from his thoughts.

Harry stiffened beside him.

“That was my code name,” Eggsy said, and his fingers curled more tightly around JB’s leash as if the faint pain of his nails digging into his palm would be enough to ground him, to hold his mind here in _today_ and _now_ instead of two years ago when Ross had done this to him. “My serial number. My whole identity, actually. The one Ross gave me. The five hundred ninety-seventh asset out of six hundred, third replacement. Since the original and the two A597’s before me were – were killed.” He felt compelled to explain it, even though there was no way Harry wouldn’t have immediately known its meaning.

“You don’t have to,” Harry said quietly, and Eggsy didn’t need to ask to know what he meant.

“I do,” he said, almost fiercely, almost desperately. “Harry, I – I need to talk about this. I need _someone_ to know. Someone other than Ross, I mean. An’ it’s not easy for me, I – I freeze up sometimes, I stop being able to make myself say things, but you told me once that these things ain’t gonna get better without talkin’ about it. An’ I know it ain’t easy for you, neither, an’ I know it’s not fair to you, but please, I…”

_I need you to know why I’m leaving you._

Harry’s voice was gentle. “I’ll listen, Eggsy.” It was a simple sentence, simply said, but it calmed the torment in Eggsy’s heart, soothed the storm of his thoughts.

He let out a shuddering breath. “Alright. Thanks, Harry.”

Harry was silent. He was waiting for him to speak now, Eggsy realized. Ready to listen, now that Eggsy was ready – or at least as ready as he thought he ever would be – to talk.

So he did.

“I kicked Dean out, right after I got back from your place,” Eggsy said, and this part wasn’t hard to talk about yet. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t done thousands of times before, except silently and to himself – repeating his life over and over in his head so he would remember what Ross had tried to make him forget. “He was theatenin’ my mum, and I told him to fuck off and never come back unless he wanted me to blow his brains out, so he went and fucked off like any sane man. Thought that was the last I’d ever see of ‘im, only Ross told me he got ‘im and that’s how he knew where all my friends was livin’ and how he got to all of them. But I was out for a drink, I – I guess I needed to clear my head, I don’t remember. And it doesn’t matter. But that’s when – that’s when Ross must’ve found them. My mum and Daisy. And he told me that he’d seen my marks from the Marines, seen me with Dean in our flat, and he said that he’d kill them if I didn’t do what he said. So I had no choice. I had to go with him.

“He wanted me to forget everythin’ about my old life. He wanted total control over me, so he took away my name, my family, my privacy. Trackers, cameras, you name it. That’s why there was that tracker in my spine. He put it there so he could always know where I was, hear what I was doing. And he imbedded it in my spine so I couldn’t cut it out or nothin’. Then he…he…”

He trailed off. His throat was constricting, the muscles in his neck and chest stiffening, and he tried for sound but he couldn’t make any come out.

_He tortured me._

Harry’s hand slipped onto his upper back, resting gently between his shoulder blades. Ross had made A005-0 cut him there once, with a burning blade, and the wound had closed as it was made.

Eggsy took a deep breath, and then another. His hands were shaking now, and the tremors ran down the length of JB’s leash, jingling the tags on his collar. _He tortured me._ And his throat was still constricted, his vocal chords still frozen, his chest heaving as he tried desperately to form the shapes of the words in his mouth with a body that refused to respond. _The things he did, Harry. What would you say if I told you?_

_And to think that I once worried you knew I was a rent boy. To think that once, that was my biggest fear, that you’d find out._

He could’ve laughed, if his body didn’t ache with the memory of what Ross had done to him.

A light touch, a soothing circle, rubbed into Eggsy’s spine with a calloused thumb.

“He tortured me,” Eggsy managed to say, finally, several minutes of agonized silence later. “Until I was willing to forget my name and become A597-3.” It came out in a rush, his voice choked. They were paused by the side of the road now; JB was sniffing around a patch of tall grass. He didn’t elaborate on how Ross had tortured him; Harry had seen his scars, seen those few minutes of video, and that was all he needed to know about it. There were some things Eggsy never wanted to speak of again, and never would, even if it felt like all of his emotions shut down when the memories came back and he felt too numb to worry about the pain.

Still, Harry was silent. _But you didn’t forget_ , he would’ve said, had he spoken. They had reached the second street corner; JB turned right, and Harry and Eggsy followed.

“I didn’t forget,” Eggsy agreed. His voice was still halting when he continued, but it was there. “I couldn’t. Or I wouldn’t, I don’t really know anymore, and I don’t care to think about it to figure it out. One –” He broke off, took a few deep breaths, closed his eyes for a moment. “One hundred forty-seven days, I refused to accept it. But then I couldn’t…I couldn’t take the fucking _pain_ anymore. So I became A597-3. I became what he wanted me to be.” He swallowed. “At least during the day, I was. At night, I’d remember. I’d tell myself all of this, just as I’m tellin’ you, so I wouldn’t forget who I really was and forget my family, or my past, or – or you.

“Because – I felt _numb_ when I was A597-3. And that was dangerous. It became something I slipped into when I went out on missions, and somethin’ I had to shed when I finished them. I did horrible things as A597-3, Harry. Things I don’t want to talk about. Or can’t talk about, even though I’m sure you know all about it by now. But it’s also what kept me alive, whether that’s…whether that’s good or not. The numbness kept me sane, because without it who knows what the guilt and horror would’ve done to me. The numbness…it’s still there, Harry. Whenever I think about what I did, whenever I do _anythin’_ – fuck, my whole fuckin’ life now, it’s just emptiness.

“I know what I did was terrible. I know what I went through was just about as bad as what anyone could’ve gone through. But I’m just…I’m so fuckin’ _detached_ from it, it’s like it happened to someone else I don’t care about and – I don’t know, I just say that it sucks and move on without really feelin’ nothin’. Except sometimes, when the numbness stops being numb and then I start to feel all of it again, and it _hurts_ , Harry, it fuckin’ hurts. An’ I don’t want to ever feel like that again, so I shut down. Become numb again, until I don’t feel anythin,’ because I don’t know how to deal with it otherwise.”

He stopped, swallowed, breathed. Willed the burning behind his eyes to stop. He felt the pain rising inside of him again like an ugly sea monster rearing its head – because that was what it was. Something lurking in the depths of his memory, hidden away under the waves but always there, always waiting. He didn’t think it would ever go away.

“And now?” Harry asked. “Is it the same now?”

Eggsy exhaled shakily. His hands trembled, and the faint tremor still ran down the length of JB’s leash, still jingled the tags on his collar. “Yeah.”

He felt worn, now, even though he knew he had barely said anything. He’d barely scratched the surface of what Ross had done to him, just barely gave Harry the smallest idea of the anguish he was going through, but he felt exhausted. Numb, again, when just a few moments ago he’d felt panic and fear and the horrible urge to vomit.

He hadn’t even started to heal.

“Yeah,” he said again, and the tremor in his hands had moved to his voice.

“I feel that sometimes,” Harry said quietly, after a few moments. JB was still sniffing at the grass. “Of course, it cannot compare…I can’t claim to understand what you’ve gone through, and your traumas are different from mine. But I understand a little bit of that numbness. I understand a little bit of how it takes over everything, dampens your joy and yet stops the pain. And I understand a little bit of how that pain is still always there.”

JB snorted, glanced up at Eggsy, wiggled the little curled nub of his tail, and trotted forward.

“I feel like I’m balancing at the edge of a cliff,” Eggsy confessed in a rush, with a little bit of a huffed, humorless laugh. “I’m just barely holdin’ onto something that keeps me here and functionin,’ but one little thing might set me off an’ then – I don’t know, Harry, I just…it’s like I’m a castle that’s under siege and about to be taken over an’ the walls are crumblin’ down but everyone’s inside and determinedly pretendin’ everythin’s perfectly okay.”

Harry’s hand was gone from his back now; Eggsy hadn’t noticed when he’d moved it. Already, he missed the comforting presence, the grounding weight of it through his coat.

He was silent for a few more moments. “D’you ever feel…do you regret anythin’ you did, Harry?” he asked finally, and his voice was hoarse. It shook, too, and cracked as he said Harry’s name.

“Many things,” Harry said softly.

_Like loving me?_

Again, silence. It hung heavy between them, the weight of words unspoken. The only sounds were that of JB’s nails scratching against the pavement, and the faint noises of their heels as they struck the ground; Harry’s louder than Eggsy’s. They had both learned to walk in silence when necessary, but Harry had adjusted back to civilian life and normalcy better than Eggsy had. He found it easier than Eggsy to be seen, to be heard, to be part of this world.

“Tell me more,” Harry said, and his voice was soft; just a murmur. He knew Eggsy was waiting to be asked to speak again.

“It was small missions at first,” Eggsy said, haltingly, and he couldn’t meet Harry’s gaze. “Well – small compared to my last mission. Stealing from lower-profile people mostly, just so Ross could see how effective I was. See if I would obey orders. Though now, ’course, I know that it was to help ‘im with his grand plan an’ all.” He swallowed, and kept talking. “I did follow orders, because every time I thought about not listenin’ to ‘im all I could see was my mum and sister with their brains blown out. Or worse – missin’ teeth, missin’ fingers, cut up and bloodied and bruised just like I was. Tortured, b’cause I think what I feared most wasn’t that he’d kill them, it was that he’d hurt them, and keep them alive to keep hurtin’ them whenever I did something wrong. B’cause if he killed them, that was that, yeah? If he killed them, they was free, I was free. So I figured he wouldn’t kill them, but he’d do anythin’ just short of that.

“He let me see them, you know,” Eggsy said with a shaky, humorless laugh. “Every two months, he’d let me visit ‘em, just to rub it in that he had ‘em and could do whatever the fuck he wanted with ‘em. Even though he told me he was the only one who cared for me, an’ doin’ this was all for my own good, which is why – which is why it’s hard for me to believe that anyone can care about me, even now. But I still cared about my family, that ain’t ever gonna change no matter what I think they think of me, so I knew I had to protect them even if I felt that – even if Ross convinced me that no one except him cared about me. And I’d visit, and they’d see me and hear all about the secrecy of my new job, and yeah, Mum would worry, but I was good an’ Ross never punished them an’ she wouldn’t know anythin’ was wrong. She wouldn’t know that she and Daiz could be hurt any second, the second I fucked up an’ stepped out of line.

“B’cause followin’ orders was good enough for Ross to spare them. Like I said, if he killed them, he’d have no more leverage over me, yeah? He didn’t know about you, or anyone else at Kingsman. He had his suspicions, yeah, we all know that now, but he didn’t know anythin’ for sure, so he couldn’t use you against me. Not that he’d have been able to hold you hostage in the first place,” Eggsy said with another laugh, and this one was a little more genuine. “So they were the only thing that kept me in my place, since if they hadn’t been there to get hurt I could’ve done somethin’ and fucked up a mission and have Ross order one of the guys he put on my tail to kill me an’ just put a fuckin’ end to all of it. But they were there, and he could hurt them, so I kept my mouth shut an’ my head down an’ did what I was told.”

 _But sometimes I wished he would kill them,_ Eggsy thought, and he hated himself to know that it was true, that the thought had crossed his mind more than a few times. _Sometimes I wished they would die, so I wouldn’t have to kill for Ross anymore. I’d be free, I’d be able to die._

But he couldn’t say that. Not to Harry, because Harry didn’t quite hate him yet but he certainly would after hearing that, and even if it was best for Harry to forget him Eggsy couldn’t bear the thought of it being out of hatred. “Over time I guess he figured he could trust me, since he started puttin’ me on bigger missions an’ all. Stealin’ from higher-ups,” he said instead. “People with millions, and then billions. Not the greatest people, mind; a lot of them had pushed a lot of others out of the way to get that money and were doin’ a lot of unethical things to keep it, but they were still people with families and others who cared about them. People with mothers and sisters. People who might not have been great, yeah, but who were loved nonetheless. Those were who Ross had me stealin’ from.” He didn’t mention that the stealing involved murder. Harry knew that already.

Harry didn’t speak. He was a quiet presence at Eggsy’s side, comforting and familiar, and that made Eggsy’s chest ache even more at the thought of what he had to do. What he was currently doing.

He took a deep breath. “And then one month before we met again, I was assigned to the Kingsman case. Ross knew you was onto ‘im, even if you wasn’t close enough yet to actually have any chance of finding ‘im. And he wanted you gone. ‘Destroy them,’ he told me. ‘No witnesses, burn the whole fuckin’ thing to the ground.’ An’ of course, that’s what I tried to do.” He spit out the last words; ahead of him, the pug jumped and looked dolefully back at him with wide, trusting brown eyes.

 _I gave up my place in Kingsman for you_ , Eggsy thought. _I went through all of this because I looked into those eyes and found that I couldn’t hurt you._

_So how could I have done this? How could I have turned from someone who would give up his future to protect a dog into someone who murdered innocent people?_

The tips of Harry’s fingers brushed against the back of Eggsy’s hand. Soothing, warm, jolting him out of the thoughts that threatened to spiral out of control, as they so often did nowadays. When Eggsy glanced up at him, he found kind coffee eyes looking back down at him. There was no pity in them, and treacherous affection threatened to overwhelm Eggsy’s need to just get on with it and leave.

“If he hadn’t had my mum and sister, I’d have killed myself before I hurt any of you,” Eggsy said quietly, and tried not to think about the pain that flickered across Harry’s face at his words. “But he had them, and I had my orders. I figured Kingsman could take care of itself well enough against me. I was only one person, after all, against a whole organization of spies. But my mum and sis…they had nothin’. They had no one. I figured if I went after Kingsman, he’d spare my family and some of you might be able to escape without him noticing. At least for a little while. Stay under the radar, and even if you wasn’t able to rebuild at least you’d be alive. Whereas if I didn’t…”

He trailed off. There was no need to say what Ross would’ve done if he’d attempted defiance.

_I wanted you to kill me, back in that clearing. You don’t know how many times I begged you in my thoughts to put a bullet through my head. But – yes, you do. You heard me begging you._

_Oh, God. I begged you to kill me._

_How much have I hurt you?_

“I’m sorry,” Eggsy said.

_When I pushed you out of the way, how much of that was me trying to protect you, and how much of that was me hoping it would kill me instead?_

Harry’s fingers were on Eggsy’s wrist now, gentle. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said softly.

“But I hurt people,” Eggsy bit out. “I hurt Kingsman. I hurt _you_ , and you were the one who gave me everythin’ I had. How could I not apologize for somethin’ like that?”

“Something done out of necessity never requires apology. Not to me, at least.”

“I know,” Eggsy said, interrupting Harry before he could continue. “I know you don’t need apologies, and that apologies aren’t worth shit when it really comes down to fixin’ things. But it’s – I don’t know what else I can do, d’you understand, Harry? There’s nothin’ I can do to bring back the people I killed, nothin’ I can do to un-shoot Merlin. No – shut up, Harry, b’cause I know the damage I did, so don’t hide it from me, yeah? Don’t fuckin’ lie to me. Don’t try an’ protect me, b’cause after what I did, I don’t deserve it. But let me apologize, if only for the selfish reason of makin’ myself feel a little better. Makin’ me feel like I’ve atoned a little bit for what I’ve done, even if it’s insignificant to you an’ everyone else.” His words were heated; speaking had stripped away some of the numbness that enveloped him, and anger had risen just as easily as the affection had earlier. _Do you understand, Harry? The fucking guilt I feel, and how I’d do anything to make it up to you, even a little?_

Harry hummed thoughtfully. “Anything that is important to you is important to me, Eggsy. Surely you know that?”

At that, Eggsy’s anger vanished. He felt empty and drained again without it; numb again. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have said that, it was unfair.” Harry’s hand was brushing against Eggsy’s; Eggsy bit his lip and reached out, grasping the slim wrist lightly and giving it a squeeze.

Sometime during the walk they had turned around, and now they were already almost back on Harry’s street. A few more moments and they would reach his front door, and Eggsy would have to tell him that he was leaving, and they would say goodbye. 

Ah, fuck it. Why not just tell him now and get it over with?

“I’m goin’ away,” Eggsy said.

There. He’d said it. There was no going back from it now.

Harry was silent, but Eggsy could feel the tension that spiked suddenly in Harry’s hand under his palm, anxiety radiating through him, confusion and hurt weighing down his shoulders.

“I don’t know for how long,” Eggsy continued. It was a lie, and he knew it. He wanted to promise that it wouldn’t be long, that soon he would be back at Harry’s side, but he knew he couldn’t, because he couldn’t ever come back, for Harry’s sake. Harry deserved better.

Still, silence. JB was trotting ahead of them, happy, even if a bit more tired than when they had gone out, and seemed mostly oblivious to the anguish behind him. Walking behind the pug, Eggsy’s fingers slipped from Harry’s wrist.

The quiet stretched between them like a flood, like an ocean, pushing them apart. Eggsy felt like they were on opposite ends of the world, that Eggsy had pushed Harry away and that he would never be able to reach him again, because this was it. He’d leave, and even if he’d be able to return sometime in the future Harry would never take him back.

“So that’s what this was about,” Harry said finally. “Explaining to me why you’re going.”

Eggsy swallowed. “Yeah.”

“And last night? What was last night?” Harry asked, and Eggsy knew Harry was doing everything he could to keep himself under control, to keep his expression and his voice neutral, but the faint tremor in his voice gave him away. Eggsy was too afraid to listen too closely, afraid that he might hear anger, or more hurt than he could bear.

“A mistake,” Eggsy said, and the words burned him.

“I see.” Harry seemed quietly thoughtful, at least until Eggsy dared to look up at him, and then he saw everything else in Harry’s beautiful dark eyes. Pain, anger, confusion, shock – and quiet acceptance.

His eyes had always been so expressive.

Harry wouldn’t fight him.

Part of Eggsy wished he would.

Eggsy swallowed again and looked down. There were scuff marks on his shoes; something Harry never would have stood for while he was still at Kingsman. Something Ross would never have stood for, either, unless it was for going undercover. It seemed fitting, now, that Eggsy was going away. Away from Kingsman and Harry, away from Ross. Putting it all behind him – or, maybe, just going back to who he had been before.

Ah, who was he kidding. There was no going back to who he had been before. Not anymore.

Harry was cold beside him as they walked. Still, the silence stretched between them, taut and tense like stretched fabric, and Eggsy wanted to break it, but he couldn’t. There was already something broken between them, he knew, and he couldn’t bear to be the reason that something else that belonged to both of them shattered too. So they walked in silence.

They reached the front door. It was a million years too soon.

 

 

 

“So here we are,” Harry said, quietly, as they stood in front of the white-painted wood.

“Yeah.” Eggsy swallowed.

There was a pause.

_I need to go._

“Is there anything I can do before you go?” Harry asked, and his words were hesitant, as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it either. “Anything I could get you, anything you need?”

“No, I –” Eggsy broke off, took a deep breath. “I’ve got everythin’. Thanks, Harry. I just – I wanted to give my suit back to you. That’s why I brought it.” _I need to let go. I need to heal, to go away and start over with nothing tying me back._

Something flickered across Harry’s expression that Eggsy couldn’t read. Or perhaps didn’t want to read, because it would hurt him. Though he doubted anything Harry said to him could hurt him as much as knowing Harry was hurting because of him, and he didn’t need Harry to say that he was hurting to know it.

“It was made for you,” Harry said.

“No. Keep it,” Eggsy said, and it was almost fierce. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Eggsy –”

“An’ don’t go on about me keepin’ it to remember Kingsman or nothin’, you know I don’t need a suit to remember you by.” _Even though I should forget you._

Harry looked pained.

“An’ take him, too,” Eggsy said, before Harry could speak. He held out JB’s leash to Harry. “I’m not gonna be able to care for ‘im if I’m not at home every day, and technically he’s yours now anyway. And he loves you.” _Just as I do._

“He loves you too,” Harry said quietly. “He loved you first.”

Eggsy couldn’t help but feel that Harry was talking more about himself than JB. _I love you too_ , Harry meant. _I loved you first._

He swallowed hard and refused to look down at the pug, who he knew was staring up at him with his huge, sad, dark eyes. “I want you to have him. To remember me.” _Even though you shouldn’t. Even though the whole purpose of me coming to see you was to tell you to forget me._

“You know I don’t need a dog to remember you by,” Harry murmured, but he took JB’s leash anyway. It was so ridiculous, the way Harry was repeating his own words back at him, that Eggsy would’ve laughed if his chest didn’t already feel like someone had smashed it with a giant hammer. He knew Harry would’ve laughed too, if his mouth wasn’t set in a harsh line, if he hadn’t been so hurt, and made a quick-witted remark about how they sounded like they were in some romantic drama.

Another time, perhaps. Another universe, and they would’ve laughed. But it was this time, and this universe, and it felt like laughter had no place in it anymore.

“So you really are leaving,” Harry said softly.

“Yeah.”

Harry was quiet. It was as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

“It’ll be better for both of us,” Eggsy said.

“Better,” Harry said. “Not easier.” The man might not fight him on his decision, but there was something almost bitter in his voice. Eggsy couldn’t blame him; here he was, once again hurting the man he loved, the man who had offered him everything.

“I know.” Eggsy let out a shuddering breath. “And don’t say I don’t have to,” he said, before Harry could speak again. “Because I know that’s what you want to say. But I…I need time for myself, too. Bein’ here, lookin’ at all of this that I thought I knew…I can’t stop thinkin’ about how things were before all of this shit happened. I can’t stop thinkin’ about how Ross changed me, changed everything. And it’s too painful right now. I look at you an’ see what we could’ve had, what we _almost_ had, and I just…I don’t know. I can’t.”

 _We can still have it_ , a little voice in the back of his mind said. He knew Harry was thinking the same thing, even though he didn’t speak.

“And we can’t still have it,” he said aloud. “ _I_ can’t still have it. Not now.” _Not ever. You need to move on._

“You need space,” Harry said quietly.

Eggsy nodded wordlessly.

There was a silence.

“I’m hurting you,” Eggsy whispered, after a few moments.

Harry didn’t answer, but the silence was answer enough.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“I am.”

There was a pause.

“I wanted to be honest with you,” Eggsy said quietly, and he could hear the shake in his voice, the shake that came with the pain of knowing what effect his words were having on Harry. “I…I thought it would be easier for you, if you knew that I was leavin’ and why I was leavin’ an’ if you heard it from me. I’m sorry if you would’ve…if you’d rather have had it the other way around.”

Harry swallowed. Eggsy could see the way his fingers tightened around JB’s leash, the way a muscle in his jaw jumped. There was so much pain in the way he held himself; pain that Eggsy had put him through. And that couldn’t be allowed to continue. He couldn’t be allowed to keep hurting the man he loved.

JB tugged at the leash; there was a squirrel scrabbling up a tree nearby. The leaves had long since started to turn and fall, and the ground was littered with red and yellow and orange and brown. Flashing and glittering like thousands of butterflies, doomed to spend the rest of their days wet and cracked on the ground. It was beautiful, Eggsy thought bitterly, but it was dead. Dead, or dying.

So much death, all around them.

“I do feel the same.” The words slipped out, shattering the silence that had spread between them. Harry’s gaze flickered up to his face; bright gold, warm brown. Honey and chestnuts and sunlight through scotch.

“Pardon?”

“Before the mission. You asked me if I still felt the same as…as before.”

He heard a hitch in Harry’s breathing. Infinitesimally small, one that an ordinary person wouldn’t have caught, but he knew Harry. Knew the way he moved, the way he breathed, knew his very existence. “So you…”

“I do,” Eggsy said. “I still…love you. Even if last night shouldn’t have happened.” It felt strange saying it out loud again, after all this time, after two years of Ross tearing into him and telling him he shouldn’t be allowed to feel. And he knew that he’d never stopped loving Harry, even through all of the pain. He knew that he could never stop, even though he should. For both their sakes.

“But I don’t get a happy ending,” Eggsy said, and he almost laughed at how fucking pathetic that sounded, at how pathetic he was _making_ himself sound. “The world ain’t got butterflies and rainbows. Not for everyone, not for my mum, and certainly not for me.” He paused, giving Harry a small smile. “But maybe for you.”

Pain flickered across Harry’s face. “You were supposed to be my happy ending.”

“I know,” Eggsy whispered. “But I’m sorry. I can’t be. And that’s why I can’t stay,” he continued, forcing the words out; they ripped at his throat like thorns, and his heart was bleeding. But for Harry’s sake, and maybe a bit for his own, he had to go. “I can’t give you what you need, not now, and bein’ around will just…it’ll just remind us both of that, all the time, every single day. So if you really do still love me…let me go.” It hurt him to say it. It was like knives tearing at his heart to see the anguish in Harry’s expression, the way he knew the man was holding himself back, but it was for the best. He couldn’t be allowed to stay, to ruin things further, to be given another chance to hurt Harry, because the closer he got to Harry and the closer Harry got to him, the greater the chance that Eggsy could be used against him.

“It’s for the better,” he said quietly, as if it would justify the pain in Harry’s expression. “We’ll both be better off if I’m not here.”

There was a storm raging in Harry’s brown eyes, Eggsy could see it. The darkness brewing like chocolate thunderclouds, coffee rain on the horizon. The winds of conflict tearing him apart.

“Eggsy, I…if that’s really what you believe is best,” Harry began, and Eggsy could hear the torment in his voice too, the way the tension ribboned its way through the vowels, threaded its way around the consonants. He’d never heard Harry this tense before, not in this way, and it scared him. Hurt him, to know that he was the one who had caused it.

Further proof that he should leave. Harry deserved better. Harry deserved someone who would make him happy, who wouldn’t cause him any more pain.

“If you believe it’s best to leave, I won’t stop you,” Harry said, and Eggsy could see the amount of effort it took him to say that, and he loved him all the more for it. “I wish you’d stay,” Harry continued softly, a gentle, sad smile curving the corners of his lips, “but it’s your choice, and I’ll go with whatever decision you make.”

Eggsy already felt his willpower crumbling. _You shouldn’t love me. I shouldn’t love you._ But they did, and it only made sense that the best thing he could do was to leave and let their love fade. So he leaned up and kissed Harry one last time, letting his touch linger for as long as he could, before he turned around and walked away.

 

 

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy is gone, and Harry doesn't deal with things too well. He hadn't actually been dealing with things very well to begin with, but with Eggsy gone, it gets worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a short chapter. This is the chapter that deals most explicitly with PTSD, so content warning for flashbacks, nightmares, dissociation.

HARRY

               

Harry had been getting better, in terms of the nightmares and the intrusive thoughts and everything else that he knew came after trauma. Of course, “better” did not mean “fully recovered,” but there had been an improvement. Knowing the boy was safe, knowing he was around and alright. But then the boy had left, and it had all gone to shit.

He wondered if it really would be better, if it would be easier, if he could stop loving Eggsy. He thought it probably would be; if he could stop caring, then maybe he could stop caring about what had happened, and then maybe everything would go away.

But that was stupid.

He could never stop loving Eggsy.

 

 

 

Harry was assigned a mission in early November. It was supposed to be a simple one. Straightforward, short, standard. Merlin had all of the intel Kingsman needed to send someone in; they just needed an actual agent to send in, and they’d picked him.

He went to the shooting range the day before the mission, and his palms had begun to sweat as soon as he’d picked up his gun. A lifetime in Kingsman’s service had taught him respect for the weapon just as much as it had taught him to be comfortable around it, but nothing had taught him fear the same way as seeing Eggsy shot in front of him had.

“Steady, Harry,” Merlin said quietly beside him, as he pointed the gun at the target. No doubt Merlin could see his hands shaking, hear the harshness of his breathing.

It was a full two minutes before he could pull the trigger.

The bullet missed its mark.

“Again,” Merlin said simply.

Another shot, another miss. Again, and again, and again. And each time, Harry saw the bullet tearing through Eggsy's body, heard Eggsy's cries of pain, smelled Eggsy's blood in the air.

The seventh bullet finally hit the target, but it was off-center. Still not good enough.

“I can’t,” Harry said, and his shirt was damp with sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room or his level of physical activity. Beads of it trickled down the sides of his face, and his whole body shook. “Merlin, I can’t…”

“You can,” Merlin said, and he stepped back. “Focus. Breathe. Aim.”

The tenth bullet finally hit.

“Good. But it needs to be better,” Merlin said, and Harry knew he was frustrated. He had right to be; other knights were occupied with their own missions, and Kingsman didn’t have enough people to spare if Harry were unfit for field duty; he had to do better. “You can’t waste an entire clip on one target,” Merlin continued. "You know that."

“I keep seeing him,” Harry said, even though he knew he didn’t need to explain. Merlin would have already known the reason for his decline in performance. “I see him shot in front of me every time I pull the trigger. I feel his blood on my hands. I _hear_ him, Merlin, begging me to help him, even as he begged me to –” He broke off.

_He begged me to kill him._

If he’d noticed a little earlier, he could’ve saved Eggsy from being shot. Hell, if he’d just _fucking checked on Eggsy earlier,_ perhaps this whole thing could’ve been avoided. Perhaps Eggsy would never have ended up in Ross’s hands in the first place.

This was all his fault. He had just wanted to be kind, and look where it had gotten them all.

He wondered if the boy blamed him too. He wondered if that was the real reason the boy had left.

“I know,” Merlin said gently, about the reason Harry couldn’t fucking hit the target. He didn’t say more; there was nothing more to say. There was nothing Merlin could do to make trauma go away; that only came with time, with patience, and a bit of luck that whatever Harry tried, whoever Harry talked to, would help.

Harry’s hands were slick with sweat, making his grip on the gun slippery. He did his best not to think about how it felt like blood, warm and wet on his fingers.

He did his best not to think about how he might be better if the boy had stayed.

It wasn't Eggsy's fault. Eggsy had done what he needed to do, had chosen what was best for himself, and in the end, that was all that mattered. That was all Harry cared about; that Eggsy was doing whatever it took to heal and recover from everything the past two years had done to him. Eggsy's well-being was all that mattered to him, even if it hurt him, even if it was hard. He could only hope that Eggsy would someday come back, however long it took. Harry knew he would be waiting, even if it took years. Even if it took a lifetime. Even if he should just let him go and focus on his job.

“He’s gone,” Merlin said quietly. “He left. As far as you know, he’s not coming back.”

“He said he didn’t know how long –”

“Exactly,” Merlin said, and there was something like pity in his voice. “You can’t afford to hold out hope for him to come back, Harry. You can’t afford to be distracted like this. If he comes back, he comes back, and you deal with it then. But until that happens, you need to stay focused on your job. You need to let him go.”

Harry took a shuddering breath. Merlin was right. (He always was, wasn’t he?) Harry couldn’t let himself be distracted, not when he was supposed to be Kingsman’s best agent. The world didn’t wait for love, or pain, or anger. It didn’t wait for forgiveness, and didn’t care about guilt. Time simply kept passing, and things simply kept happening, and it was up to him to keep up with it.

The next clip, four of the bullets hit the target dead-center.

Harry didn’t stop until all of them did.

The next day, the mission went smoothly. The target was taken out with no bullets wasted, no suspicion roused by unnecessary gunfire or shouting. It went so smoothly, in fact, that it could have been called perfect, and Harry was back home earlier than what would have been expected even for an agent at full functioning capacity.

But the nightmares were worse.

Harry woke suddenly the night he got back from the mission, soaked in his own sweat, heart pounding and chest heaving with panting breaths, the image of Eggsy’s bloodied body burned into the back of his eyes.

Shit.

 _Not again_ , he wanted to think, but of course it happened again. It always happened again, and again, and again; an endless cycle of numbed wakefulness and horror-filled dreams.

He blinked hard several times. He could feel JB nosing and snuffling at his sides, whining gently, and realized that the pug must have been what had woken him.

_Eggsy._

He could hear the gunshots echoing in his ears, the harsh rattling of someone breathing with blood in their lungs. He swallowed, squeezing his hands into fists until he could feel his nails digging into his palm, hoping that the sting of pain would ground him, but the image refused to go away. In the darkness all he could see was the bright red of freshly-spilt blood, all he could hear were Eggsy’s cries of pain, all he could feel was the hot stickiness of his fingers.

_So much blood on my hands._

Was it Eggsy’s, or was it from the people in the church? They blended together in his mind, sometimes, the guilt from what he had done in Kentucky mixed in with the guilt that he hadn’t been able to save Eggsy, to see that Ross had taken him and then to stop him from being shot.

Another mistake he had made. Another thing he had overlooked.

His whole life, mistakes.

“Fuck,” he hissed, swallowing hard. He sat up, flicking on the lamp on his nightstand as JB huffed a bark beside him and nosed at his ribs again, and stared hard at his hands.

Slightly tanned, tendons standing out with the strength of his grip, knuckles white. No red, no blood encrusted under his nails like there had been for what seemed like weeks after Eggsy had been shot. No blood that he couldn’t seem to scrub off, even though he should have been used to having blood on his hands by then and he should have known how to wash it all away.

And around him, it was quiet, the silence broken only by his own ragged breathing and the snuffling of Eggsy’s dog. Eggsy wasn’t screaming or crying out in pain; he wasn’t dying. That was months ago, and it was over.

And yet, he couldn’t forget – no, it was more than that.

He couldn’t stop himself from remembering.

JB whined and curled up against his hip, his head a comforting weight on Harry’s thigh as Harry squeezed his eyes shut against the onslaught of memory, tried to breathe through his quickening heartbeat and the panic that rose inside of him.

 _It hurts._ The boy’s voice echoed in his mind, as clearly as if Harry was still there. _I can’t – can’t breathe._

He needed a drink.

That’s what he’d turned to, the past four months since he’d seen Eggsy shot in front of him, since the boy had almost bled out in his arms. The almost daily nightmares, which had dwindled to only a few times a month, had experienced a sudden resurgence in the weeks since the boy had left, and were often mixed in with scenes from the church in Kentucky, even though it had been almost a year since he’d considered himself recovered from that particular trauma. Nowadays, he was lucky if he could get through the night without waking up more than twice with the feeling of blood on his hands, but even despite that he’d almost always been able to get back to sleep eventually.

Not tonight, though. Tonight, the images were too vivid, the sounds too harsh, the emotions too fresh. The jolt of the gun in his hands as his bullet ripped through Eggsy's body felt too real.

Somehow, in the darkness of the rest of the house, he made his way to the kitchen, where he found the wine cabinet. Filled with cheap spirits now, since he was going through bottles so quickly without really enjoying them, and he didn’t really care which one he pulled out. He just needed to forget, and once he’d had enough of it, it didn’t matter which type of alcohol he’d chosen.

_The monitor flatlined._

He downed a glass of whatever it was without tasting it and poured himself another, trying to calm the breathing that was still ragged and heavy. His hands shook, and in the moonlight that streamed through the crack in the blinds he could see a few drops of the clear liquid splashing onto the tiled floor.

Ah. Gin, then.

_It hurts._

A gunshot exploded in his ears. The sniper’s, or his own?

Harry shook his head violently and sat down in a chair, taking another long drink until his glass was empty and then setting it down heavily on the table and filling it again. He heard a spray of bullets, remembered the way they had shaken the shell of the cab, remembered the sickening way they had struck the boy’s body, remembered the horrifying feeling of _satisfaction_ as they cut through dozens and dozens of people in the church, and tried not to give into the wave of memories.

It didn’t work.

_I’m dying – Harry, help me –_

Panic threatened to engulf him; once again, Eggsy was lying on the ground in front of him in a pool of his own blood. Once again, nails were digging into his wrist in agonized desperation. Once again, he was watching Eggsy die (in the church?), and it was all his fault, and he couldn’t fucking pull himself out of it.

_The monitor flatlined._

His breath came in harsh, uneven gasps.

_Eggsy took a heaving breath and then bit off with a cry of pain, reaching desperately for Harry, hands scrabbling for something – someone – to hold onto. He coughed, and there was blood._

_A pang of agony shot through Harry's chest like something physical tearing through his flesh. “Gently, gently. I’m here, love, I’m here. You’re alright.” He shrugged off his jacket and tore off his cotton shirt, pressing it hard to the wounds in the boy’s body and adding his bulletproof jacket on top of it. He suddenly looked so fragile. “Just breathe. Steady now, love.” The endearments slipped out almost without him noticing, coming as easily to his lips as if he hadn’t just found out that Eggsy – his Eggsy – was Garlon._

“Stop,” Harry gasped, wrenching himself out of memory with enormous effort. But that wasn’t how trauma worked, he knew, even though he was aware that he was going into a flashback, even though he was aware that the things happening and spilling out of his memory weren't actually happening; even as he tried to focus on the pain in his hands from the glass that had shattered in his grip, he couldn’t just force himself to forget –

_A pang of agony shot through Harry’s chest like something physical tearing through his flesh. He suddenly looked so fragile._

_“Hurts,” Eggsy whispered. “I can’t – can’t breathe.” His eyes were wide and wandering and didn’t seem to be able to focus; poor pupil response, Harry realized belatedly. He coughed again, and cried out in pain, and more blood came up. No doubt one of the bullets had hit a lung._

_One of my bullets, I shot him, I shot the people in the church –_

_Harry tightened his grip on the boy’s hand, pressed down a little harder against the bleeding –_

I love you, Eggsy, Harry felt himself think almost desperately, almost painfully, though no sound escaped his lips and JB’s whines and barks assailed his ears. I love –

_Harry tightened his grip on the boy’s hand, pressed down a little harder against the bleeding that he didn’t seem to be able to stop. “Yes, you can,” he said, turning to press a kiss to the boy’s palm even as he felt him slipping away, because he still loved him._

(I love you, Harry thought, and drank straight from the bottle.)

_He couldn’t believe he still fucking loved him._

_But if Eggsy was telling the truth, if his family really were being held hostage at 126 Conifer Way –_

_“Come on, Eggsy, in and out, easy. You’re alright. Here.” He tilted the boy’s head to the side, angled his body so he wasn’t flat on his back to help with his breathing. Sweat had begun to bead on the boy’s forehead and he wiped it away gently, flinching at how cold he felt. Cold, so fucking cold, so close to death –_

_Eggsy’s eyes began to close._

_“Eggsy? Eggsy, stay with me,” Harry said, and he couldn’t keep the desperation out of his voice. Eggsy needed to stay awake, needed to keep breathing –_

_Harry had to save him, if he couldn’t even save the person he loved how was he expected to ever atone for his sins, to repent for the fifty-two people he’d murdered in cold blood in Kentucky two years ago –_

Harry hadn’t had much to eat before he’d started drinking, and he could already feel the alcohol starting to hit. (Grounding, he thought desperately. You’re safe, you’re in your house on Stanhope Mews, it’s November –) Blurring his thoughts and his memories, blending them together –

_“Eggsy, stay with me.” The boy’s eyes were closed, his skin pale and cold, his breaths coming fast and harsh and short. Shallow, rattling with the blood in his lungs. The car swerved and Harry braced himself against the door, tightening his grip around the boy stretched out in the seat beside him, his entire front stained red with his blood even through Harry’s shirt._

_Harry felt his gut twist. The blood, there was so much blood –_

But it wasn’t enough. He needed to forget, needed to sink back into a dreamless sleep, needed to escape the agony of the memory –

_The blood, there was so much blood –_

_“Eggsy? Eggsy, stay with me,” Harry said, and he couldn’t keep the desperation out of his voice –_

_“Hurts,” Eggsy whispered. “I can’t – can’t breathe –”_

_The monitor flatlined –_

Harry woke to a gentle touch on his shoulder and a soft voice in his ear, calling his name.

“Eggsy?” Harry slurred, when he could make his brain form words. Or rather, he meant to speak, but he wasn’t sure if any sound came out. His head felt thick and his limbs heavy, and when he blinked his eyes open his vision swam dangerously.

Right. Eyes closed, then.

A huffed laugh; humorless, worried. A response that Harry didn’t register. And then, distantly –

_If you really do still love me, let me go._

“Ah,” Harry said, still slurred. Right. Eggsy was gone. The alcohol was still coursing strong through his veins, deadening his emotions, muddling his thoughts. But the memories were still there, even if they were currently jumbled and disjointed, and he couldn’t stop thinking about –

It would be easier to pretend that this was Eggsy, even if the voice was a little off.

“Let’s get you back to bed, alright?” the man Harry had decided was Eggsy said softly, and distantly Harry was aware of warm hands on his shoulders, supporting him as he stood and stumbled. “Good God, man, how much have you had?”

“D…dunno,” Harry mumbled, when the words had registered and he could force his own mouth to move, to form a response. There was a crushing feeling in his chest. “My-my chest –”

“Hm. Too much,” Eggsy murmured. “And your hands…we need to get that cleaned up.”

“My chest,” Harry slurred again, gradually becoming aware that the crushing feeling was anguish, and then his vision blurred and went dark.

 

 

The next time he woke was when he was bent over the toilet, and he felt _awful_.

“Shh,” Eggsy soothed, one hand rubbing Harry’s back, the other slipped under his chest to support him. “I’ve got you. You’re alright.”

Harry heard himself moan; a moment later, his stomach lurched and he retched into the toilet. “Fuck,” he mumbled. “I haven’t – how much –”

“Almost two bottles, I think,” Eggsy said quietly. “No wonder you’re throwing up.”

The nausea was almost – _almost_ – enough to distract him from the reason he’d been drinking in the first place, and he felt himself leaning heavily against Eggsy’s body. Its warmth was soothing, easing the pounding in his head and the burning in his gut.

Somehow, the trauma was easier to bear with someone by his side. He was helpless, and the hands on his body were so, so kind.

“What time is it?” Harry asked dizzily.

Eggsy’s voice was gentle. “Just past two. You’ve got a while yet.”

“Fuck,” Harry said, and retched again.

 

 

“Fuck me,” Harry heard himself say when he woke again, his voice cracking with pain and desperation. He was on a bed and Eggsy was beside him, smoothing the hair back from his sweat-slicked forehead, holding him close. It was hot – too hot – and the world was spinning around him. Distantly, it registered that this must have been one of his few moments of relative clarity.

Eggsy shook his head. “No, Harry,” he murmured. “Not now. Not when you’re like this.”

Agony, shooting through Harry’s chest. It was that same crushing feeling again. “I love you,” he said as he curled into Eggsy’s body, and his eyes were hot and burning and his cheeks were wet. His stomach was aching from the alcohol he’d forced into his body; it burned, liquid fire through his veins, thicker than honey in his thoughts.

“You’re drunk,” Eggsy said quietly, and his fingers were still on Harry’s temples, infuriatingly calm and steady.

“’M not,” Harry said, even though his vision was swimming and his cheeks were flushed with heat under the wetness of tears. “Fuck me,” Harry said again, and he was reaching down between Eggsy’s legs and grinding against him, the alcohol that was still burning through him lending his movements a messy desperation that he couldn’t hold back. He was distantly aware of Eggsy’s body responding despite himself, of his cock hardening in his hand (why did his hand hurt?), and when Harry kissed him he could smell the alcohol on his own breath.

God, he was disgusting.

“Shh,” Eggsy murmured, pulling back. “Just sleep now, Harry.”

“I want you,” Harry slurred, and his voice was shaking with the panic rising in him. “Please, I – I can’t stop thinking about you getting shot. Every time I close my eyes I see it, and I can’t…I need…”

His hands were on Eggsy’s body now, searching for bullet holes that he couldn’t find, because they weren’t there, because that was months ago, because Eggsy was safe, because he needed to know that and Eggsy knew he needed to. They slipped under his shirt to rest directly against skin, and Harry thought distantly that it was strange there were no scars at all, but he didn’t want to think about it, because everything would be easier if he just let go and pretended it really was Eggsy beside him. He took Eggsy’s hand and pressed it to his dick, pleading for something, _anything_ , to distract him from the horrors his mind dug up for him in the dark, and Eggsy let him.

“I love you,” Harry said, and then another wave of dizziness hit and he slipped into unconsciousness.

 

               

It was dawn when he opened his eyes again.

He blinked hard several times, wincing as his head pounded and discomfort radiated from his stomach and pain shot through his right hand when he moved it. He sat up with some effort, letting out a soft groan as his body protested, and then his stomach lurched sickeningly.

He barely made it to the bathroom in time to empty whatever was left in him into the toilet. It hurt, the way the movement set off a barrage of cramps in his gut and pounding in his head, and he winced as he flushed and stood shakily when he was done.

“Harry?”

A rush of adrenaline surged through him at the sound of his name, the adrenaline that came with knowing that someone was there who shouldn’t be, and then he remembered, and then he realized.

“Merlin,” he said. His voice was hoarse. When he glanced at himself in the bathroom mirror, he looked as exhausted as he felt.

The familiar figure of his fellow Kingsman appeared at the bottom of the stairs when Harry stepped out of the bathroom; when he saw that Harry was already awake, he took the stairs by twos and steadied Harry by the shoulders when he reached the top. Harry hadn’t even realized that he’d been swaying where he stood.

“You’re awake,” Merlin said, somewhat unnecessarily.

“Yes, I –” Harry broke off, eyes widening. “Fuck, the time –”

Merlin laughed softly, giving Harry’s shoulders a gentle squeeze to hold him back from charging into his room and changing into his bespoke suit. “Relax, Harry, you don’t think I would have woken you earlier if you’d had to go in? No, you have the day off. It was mostly paperwork for you anyway, and I asked Percival to cover for me as soon as I got here last night.”

A wave of dizziness came over him, as if the relief had shaken away the control he’d had over himself, shaken away his ability to hold himself together. “Last night…how did you know?” Harry asked.

“That you were shit-faced drunk and needed someone? You called,” Merlin said. “You were barely coherent, and you didn’t seem to have any intention of slowing down the drinking. I guessed that it had to do with nightmares, based on what I could make out. You had passed out by the time I got here.”

“God.” Harry shook his head. “I don’t even…I don’t even remember that.”

“Mm. How are you feeling now?” Merlin asked. His voice was gentle.

“Like shit,” Harry mumbled. The world tilted. “I think I’m still a little drunk.”

Merlin’s face softened in sympathy. “I’m not surprised. Do you remember anything?”

“From – ah.” Harry looked away. “Bits and pieces. I remember coming downstairs after the…after JB woke me from the nightmare. The same one. It’s always the same one.” He swallowed and winced, squeezing his eyes shut on a piercing pain in his head. “Shit.”

“Alright, you’re lying down. Come on,” Merlin said quietly. “And don’t worry about JB; I’ve taken him out and fed him already.” He led Harry back to his bedroom and settled him on the bed; a moment later, Harry heard the jingling of JB’s collar and the pug emerged in the doorway. The dog climbed onto the stool Harry had placed by the footrest and, from there, scrambled onto the bed to lie beside Harry. He looked doleful and sad, as if he could feel Harry’s misery.

Merlin was looking at Harry expectantly; Harry didn’t miss how Merlin’s fingers brushed against the back of his bandaged hand. He still didn’t know what had happened to it.

“I remember drinking. Obviously,” Harry said, slightly hesitantly. “Realizing that it was gin, because I spilled some on the floor. I remember waking up when you came over. And then…shit.” His cheeks colored as the memories flooded back, and he couldn’t meet Merlin’s gaze. “I thought you were Eggsy.”

“I know.” Merlin’s voice was gentle.

Harry swallowed. _And then I said I wanted you to fuck me. I said that I loved you._ Which was true, of course, he loved Merlin, but to say that, and then to ask for what he did, was totally, wholly improper, especially when they both knew those words were meant for someone else. “Did we…” He broke off, clearing his throat. There were bruises all over Merlin’s neck, and there was no question as to who had put them there.

“Have sex? No,” Merlin murmured. “No, we didn’t get that far. You said you needed a distraction, something to prevent you from thinking about it until you fell asleep again. It seemed…you were a mess, Harry, I don’t know how to put it any other way. I worried you would regret it when you woke, so I…we stopped before it got too far.” He paused. “Is that all you remember?”

 _We stopped before it got too far. So how far gone was I, to have needed someone else to stop me?_ “I…yes. I think so. I don’t…I don’t really remember much at all.” Harry stopped, swallowed. “I…I’m sorry, Merlin. I was out of line.”

“You’ve been doing this a lot,” Merlin said quietly about Harry drinking himself into a stupor instead of addressing what Harry had just said. It wasn’t a question when Merlin spoke; nor was it an accusation.

Harry looked away and didn’t speak. It seemed stupid to have done what he did, now that the sun had risen and it was a new day. It always seemed stupid the next day. And yet, it kept happening. Night after night, drinking himself back to sleep so he didn’t have to remember the boy’s cries, because the nightmares and flashbacks kept coming back.

“How’s your head?” Merlin asked.

“Feels like a truck ran over it,” Harry mumbled. “The fracture is hurting again.”

“Mm. And your stomach?”

“Uncomfortable, but not bad.” Harry sighed. “I’m getting old, I can’t drink like I used to.”

“You’re not that old, Harry,” Merlin murmured. And then, “Though it can’t help to be getting blackout drunk every night for a few months in a row.”

Harry made a small noise of dissent and shifted; JB lifted his head and whined, wriggling closer to him and resting his wrinkled chin against Harry’s arm. Harry lifted his right hand, staring at the white bandages wrapped around it almost uncomprehendingly. “What happened?”

“You were drinking,” Merlin said, and there was something hesitant, almost guarded in his voice. “You were holding a glass. It shattered.”

Harry swallowed. “Ah.” He saw the blood that had seeped through the bandages, staining them red, and suddenly it felt much harder to breathe.

“Shh, relax. Focus on me, alright?” Merlin murmured, and Harry understood that Merlin had known that this was going to happen, that this was the reason he’d been so careful with his words. “I’m here, you’re here, in your house on Stanhope Mews, and it’s November. You’re doing fine, Harry. In and out with me, just like that. There we go.” Merlin kept talking as Harry felt the panic fading, his voice soothing, grounding, until Harry was able to return to something resembling normal again.

Merlin stood, giving Harry’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’ve made breakfast; eggs and toast. Tea is still brewing, but it should be ready soon. Now you stay here, alright? I’ll bring it up to you. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

Harry nodded wordlessly. Merlin left, and Harry sat there on his bed and wondered if he would ever feel okay again.

 

 

 

Breakfast was amazing; a usual when Merlin cooked, no matter how simple it was. The warmth of the tea was soothing once Harry had finished eating, the heat spreading through his body and chasing away the aching deep in his bones. The headache was starting to fade now that he’d taken two Aspirin and drank and eaten; he sighed in something resembling satisfaction and leaned back against Merlin’s shoulder.

“I miss him, Merlin,” he heard himself say. His eyes were closed against the sunlight that washed in gently through the curtains.

Merlin hummed softly, the hand he had splayed on Harry’s belly moving in small, gentle circles. “I know.”

“He said…he said it would be better if he left. He said, specifically, that it would be better for both of us.” Harry let out a humorless laugh. “I fail to see why.”

“He must have his reasons,” Merlin said.

Harry took another sip of tea and didn’t respond.

_He left because of his guilt. He left because he felt that I couldn’t, or perhaps shouldn’t, love him. Or at least that’s what he made it sound like – perhaps, in reality, he left because he blames me for what happened to him._

As he should. Harry knew it was his fault. He knew if he’d darted the boy like he was supposed to, if he’d just kept a closer eye on him or actually bothered to look for him those two years instead of assuming that Eggsy had just kept his distance out of his own will, perhaps Eggsy wouldn’t have suffered at all.

But Eggsy said that he still felt the same. Eggsy said that he still loved Harry, and Harry had seen the regret in his expression as he’d walked away.

Surely, the boy hadn’t left out of hatred? Out of anger, or spite?

“Whatever else he feels, above else he’s afraid of hurting you,” Merlin said quietly. “I think he’s believed for so long that his love was something punishable – which is wholly reasonable, when you consider that Ross was holding his family hostage and presumably using them against him – that part of him is still convinced that loving you will hurt you. The next logical step, if he wants to protect you, would be to stop loving you. And I think the only way he thinks he can do that is if he stays away.”

Harry felt something clench in his chest at Merlin’s words, at hearing what he already knew was true, because hearing it said out loud was somehow more painful. “And me?” he rasped. “What does he think I’m supposed to do with my love?” And suddenly he was angry at Eggsy. Angry that he’d refused Kingsman’s offer for help, angry that he’d had the _audacity_ to think Harry could ever stop loving him, angry that he’d hurt him by leaving.

Harry had been ready to give _everything_ to him, but Eggsy didn’t even want to try.

“I don’t know,” Merlin said after a pause, and somehow his voice was calming; Harry felt the anger melt away as soon as it had come on, and it left him exhausted, numb, and knowing that what he’d just thought about Eggsy had been unfair. The boy needed to do what he needed to do, regardless of how much Harry hurt, and Harry couldn’t expect otherwise.

He tried to convince himself that Eggsy had done his best not to hurt him, to leave in the gentlest way possible, and that because of it, it was alright. _He_ would be alright, because Eggsy’s intention had never been to hurt him. He would be alright, because Eggsy was doing what he needed to do, and that meant Eggsy would be alright too.

He’d tried to convince himself of that for many weeks now.

He still hadn’t been successful.

“I think that’s something you need to figure out for yourself,” Merlin continued, still talking about what was left for Harry to do. A soft chuckle. “And I also think you need to take it easy on the drinking.”

“Hmph.” Harry shifted against Merlin’s chest and tried not to think of Eggsy. “You’re probably right.”

_It hurts. I can’t – can’t breathe –_

“What happened last night?” Harry asked, and his voice was barely more than a whisper. He was afraid; more afraid than he’d ever been, more uncertain about himself than he ever remembered being.

He was a Kingsman. He should always be in control both of himself, and of the situation he was in. And for the past thirty-odd years of his time at Kingsman, that’s what he had been.

Until Eggsy came along. Eggsy had torn down his walls with his gentle hands, the angelic lilt of his voice, the innocent mischief in his eyes, and Harry had become just like any other person in the world, fallen head over heels in love and unable to do anything about it.

And now that Eggsy had left, Harry felt broken. Shattered like glass. And the thought that he had been responsible for Eggsy’s pain, for the reason Eggsy had left, drove each and every one of those shards into Harry’s heart.

_What happened last night?_

“Well, you…” Merlin trailed off, took a deep breath, and started again. “Harry, you’ve been through a lot, even by Kingsman standards, and you need to understand that what you’re going through is normal considering the circumstances. No one is going to judge you, and you shouldn’t judge yourself either for a natural reaction.”

“No,” Harry interrupted. “ _What happened_?”

Merlin was quiet for a long time. His hands were still on Harry’s body, the movements absent-minded and almost unconscious, soothing him, lulling away his tension and his stress and his pain.

“You broke your glass,” Merlin said softly, finally. His chin was tucked down against his chest, his lips brushing the graying hair by Harry’s temple, and when he spoke Harry had the vague, fleeting, inexplicable thought of a father reading a bedtime story to his son. “You broke a lot of things, actually. The two bottles – I think you threw one against the mirror in the dining room, and the other against the wall, if the damage downstairs is anything to go by. You threw a few chairs against the wall, too; you’ll have to put in a request to repair the holes. The table –” He broke off; Harry felt the shudder in his breathing. “Let’s just say you’ll need new kitchen knives, and I’m glad it was the table, and not you.”

Harry took a shaky breath and focused on the cold wet spot that JB’s nose was leaving against his ankle.

“You had a mental break,” Merlin said gently. “Panic attacks, flashbacks, dissociation. You were hyperventilating when you called me, and I don’t even know how you managed to get to your phone.”

“Why now?” Harry whispered. He’d had nightmares, yes, almost nonstop since he’d seen Eggsy shot. Nightmares and flashbacks and intrusive thoughts and guilt and emptiness. But it had never been this bad, to the point where he’d lost control.

Merlin heaved a light sigh. “I’m no psychiatrist, but I don’t know what else it could be other than the last mission you went on. It’s the first one since Eggsy left, the first one since Ross. I know how much you struggled to even hold a gun, Harry, and I can’t imagine what it took for you to pull through that mission. Whether I’m right or wrong, I’m not letting you go on any more missions anytime soon.” A pause. “I’m not a psychiatrist, but I know that what you’re experiencing are all very typical symptoms of PTSD, especially when something triggering is encountered. Something like a nightmare, brought on by something else potentially triggering like holding a gun on a mission. You know this too, Harry.”

Harry’s head was aching again.

“But you’re safe,” Merlin murmured. “And you’ll be okay. Eggsy will be okay.”

“I can’t sleep,” Harry blurted out. “It’s one thing when I’m on a mission or even just sitting at my desk in the daylight, with – with other things going on around me, but at night, in the darkness…it was getting better, you know. I was fine when he was still here, the nightmares almost went away completely. And then he left, and I suppose it’s because I can’t stop worrying about him – Merlin, you saw what happened when we went to take out Ross, you saw how he hurt himself. And now he’s…I don’t even know where he is, all I know is that he’s out there alone, and if he hurts himself again –” He broke off, a soft whine escaping his lips at the pounding in his head.

“Shh,” Merlin soothed, pressing a gentle kiss to Harry’s temple. “Just take it easy now.”

Harry swallowed, hating the feeling of helplessness, the feeling of being out of control. His hands were shaking and the tea splashed around in the cup; Merlin closed his hand over Harry’s, steadying him.

“They’ll stop eventually,” Merlin said, about the nightmares.

“They’re not stopping soon enough.” Harry took a deep breath and tried to stop himself from shaking.

Merlin hummed. “You need to find some better coping mechanisms, Harry,” he said, not unkindly, resting his cheek against the top of Harry’s head. “And hopefully in time you’ll be doing better than coping.”

Harry wanted to laugh. _Better than coping_ , he thought. _No, Merlin, you’re wrong._

The road ahead of him was bleak, gray like old rubble and stifling as desert air, yet colder and more unforgiving than the edge of a knife.

_The edge of a knife, pressed against Eggsy’s throat._

 

 

 

Harry went back to therapy. He went to his first appointment more for Merlin and for Roxy than because he really felt like it would do anything, but it helped. His therapist helped him understand that he was (still, or once again) dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, and that panic attacks and flashbacks and nightmares and dissociative episodes were part of that. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t already known and been told, but hearing it again from an actual psychologist made him feel that maybe he wasn’t as fucked up as he thought he was.

The nightmares continued. They got a little better, as most things tend to do with time and a little bit of prodding. But they continued. So did the flashbacks, so did the panic every time he heard a gunshot or a car backfiring, so did the guilt and the fear every time he saw blood.

It took three months before he could even _start_ thinking about Eggsy being shot without feeling a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck, without his hands shaking and his breath quickening into hyperventilation, and even then, it was only a few moments at a time. He’d hear the gunshot ringing in his ears, feel the boy fall into his arms, and then his thoughts would run into a wall and he’d have to take a break for a good half an hour before he could bring himself to think about it again. And his therapist would ground him, and then tell him how to ground himself, and then she’d tell him that it was okay, that he needed to go at his own pace.

He forced himself to watch the footage anyway, over and over, the same way he’d done with the church in Kentucky two years ago (and sometimes, after a particularly shitty day, he pulled up the footage from that massacre and re-watched that too). He didn’t tell his therapist about this part. He figured she’d say it was unhealthy, the way he pushed himself through it, the way he’d drive himself into another panic attack, but he needed it. It made him feel pain, and guilt, and fear, and it’s what he felt like he deserved for what he’d done.

He didn’t tell her, but he figured she knew about it anyway.

It took almost four months for him to tell her that Eggsy had left. Of course she already knew; everything Harry said about him was in past tense, and anything he said about what the boy had done was dated to at least four months ago. She knew Eggsy wasn’t in his life anymore. But still, it took almost four months for Harry to be able to say it.

And when he did, she helped him understand that Eggsy might never come back.

That was probably the hardest part of all.

 

 

**November** **2016**

 

EGGSY

 

Walking away from Harry that day in October was one of the hardest things Eggsy had ever done, but he knew that he had to. Harry needed to forget him and move on with his life. Eggsy needed time to process what he’d done and gone through the past three years, and that wasn’t something he could do with Harry. Harry would tell him to forgive himself and that nothing that he’d done was his fault, but even if that were true it was something Eggsy needed to realize on his own.

But _God_ , he missed him. And it was five weeks of restlessness and nightmares and aching emptiness in his chest before he realized that he needed him.

It was five weeks before he came back to London, and Savile Row. Five weeks before he couldn’t resist the thought of seeing Harry again, even if it was from a distance, even if Harry wasn’t supposed to know he was there, even if he knew he was going against everything he’d promised himself to do and doing everything he’d promised himself not to.

Roxy caught him one day in December as he stood in the shadows of an alleyway, watched Harry walking into the tailor shop at precisely 0700 as he did every morning he wasn’t on or recovering from a mission. Eggsy had the feeling that she’d always known he was there. He had a feeling that Harry knew he was there, too.

“Hey, Eggsy,” Roxy said, slipping off of the main road into the shadows beside him. Her breath misted in the air between them. Her voice was on the cautious side when she spoke; quiet, almost sensitive. “I’m not going to ask how you’re doing, because I know you’re not ready to answer that. But I _will_ offer you a chocolate croissant.” She held out a brown paper bag, at the bottom of which were several of the pastries. “Just one – or two, actually, I think I have an extra – the rest are going to everyone at HQ this morning.”

Eggsy just stared at her and didn’t respond. He hadn’t spoken much since he’d left, and it was like his vocal cords had stopped working. Or maybe he just didn’t care enough to speak.

Roxy was silent for a few minutes, watching him watching her. Then, “You miss him, don’t you?”

Eggsy didn’t answer.

“You need him.” It wasn’t a question.

Eggsy looked away. Harry would be underground by now, in the hyperloop that would take him to HQ, and he would greet his fellow knights and begin the paperwork for the day.

Roxy sighed. She closed the brown paper bag, rolling up the opening neatly and tucking the entire thing under her arm. “He waits for you,” she said, gently. There was no note of accusation in her voice, nothing that made him feel that she blamed him or was angry at him for causing Harry’s suffering, even if he deserved her blame. There was another pause before she spoke. “He’s gone back to therapy. He’s doing better, I think. But he still waits for you every day.”

 _I know_ , Eggsy wanted to say. He’d seen Harry’s lights on well past midnight, well into the dawn of the next day, and on more than one occasion had seen him lock his windows and close the curtains, only to get up a few minutes later and open them both again. Eggsy knew he was the reason why. Eggsy knew Harry wanted him to come home.

Roxy sighed again; a cloud of white billowed out into the frosty air from between her lips. Slightly chapped, devoid of gloss or any of the makeup she sometimes wore. “To be honest, I miss you too, Eggsy. But I know…I know that you need time, and space, and that it’s not anyone else’s place to tell you what to do. I just hope you’re doing alright, and that you know that you can come back at any time if you want to.”

 _You’re wrong_ , Eggsy thought. _I can’t._

“And I know you think that it’s better for everyone if you stay away,” Roxy continued. Eggsy felt a sudden rush of anger as she spoke; a piercing, red-hot fire that flooded his veins, and he knew it was because she had seen through him so easily, and he knew it was undeserved.

“You feel guilty for what Ross made you do,” Roxy said, and Eggsy knew she could see the anger she had provoked in him, and he knew she wasn’t afraid of him. And besides, he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again, that he would be good. “You feel like it’s your fault, and that you can’t see Harry – that you can’t be around him – because you feel that he’s better than that, and that he deserves better.” Her eyes softened, and the smallest of smiles caused the corners of her eyes to crinkle. “But first of all, I think you should give him a chance to decide for himself what he deserves. I think you owe him the respect of that, at least. And second of all, even if you have your own idea of it and _you_ think that you don’t deserve him, I know that that’s not true. I used to be your best friend, Eggsy, and I hope that someday I will be again. I know you. I know you feel that you’re worthless, that you’re a terrible person and that you’ll hurt anyone who you get near to. But I also know that it’s what you’ve been through that’s making you feel that way.”

You’re dealing with trauma, she meant.

“And I know you miss him.” The words were daggers to Eggsy’s chest. “And I know he misses you. I know that you both have a much better chance of healing if you see each other, talk to each other. I know you need time and space, but Eggsy…Eggsy, please. Just…at least think about it, yeah?”

Eggsy swallowed hard and looked away. He knew it was true, that trauma could manifest in many ways but that several of those ways were exactly what he was doing. Avoidance, depression, guilt – all classic symptoms.

“Do…do you want me to tell Harry that you’re here?”

At that, Eggsy felt his lips twitch in a wry smile. “I think he already knows.” His voice cracked when he spoke; the first time in weeks.

Roxy echoed his smile. “Yes,” she mused. “I think so too.”

 

 

 

She offered him a croissant again, before she left.

He took it, and the flash of her smile warmed his heart.

 

 

 

Roxy didn’t come to see him again.

Harry never sought him out.

Eggsy didn’t get better.

 

 

 

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Come March the next year, and Eggsy isn't dealing with his leaving very well either. He thinks the reason he left still stands; Harry deserves better. But Roxy also said that they would both have a better chance of healing together. Is that enough for Eggsy to come back?

**Mid-March 2017**

EGGSY

 

Four more months passed. Each day Eggsy recited his entire life back to himself, three times a day; once when he woke, once at noon, and once before he slept. It took a while each time, so it ended up mostly being one long recollection of his life told to himself three times, once after another. Tedious, but it took up time that would otherwise have been spent sitting around doing nothing. It reminded him of who he had been, and forced him to hear aloud what he had become. And if the nightmares came after, if he felt anger and panic at the memory of what Ross had done to him and forced him to do, well.

He got used to it.

He told himself that Ross was dead, that A597-3 was dead, that sixty-seven other people were dead because of him. He told himself that he was Eggsy Unwin, repeating it over and over like a mantra when the memories became too overwhelming and when in order to cope with it all he felt himself slipping back into what he had been, slipping back into the numbed, blank mind of the assassin Ross had turned him into, when all of the pain and trauma turned itself into anger and threatened to explode out uncontrolled from behind the gulf of exhaustion and emptiness, and the wind through his hair and sun kissing his skin helped remind him of who and where he was.

He watched Harry. Every morning, save the few times he went on missions, Eggsy would watch the shop and make sure that Harry got there safely. Every evening, save the nights Harry was away saving the world, Eggsy would watch his flat and make sure that Harry got home. And during the day, he would watch his family, and make sure Daisy and his mum were okay.

It felt like a little bit of atonement, even if he knew that watching over a small handful of people would do nothing to bring back the sixty-seven others he had murdered in cold blood.

So one day, when Harry took a not-infrequent detour on his way home and ended up at a restaurant, Eggsy watched Harry from the rooftop above the balcony as he sipped from his glass of scotch, a familiar dull ache in his chest. The lines on the man’s face were deeper than when Eggsy had last spoken to him, and there was a lingering sadness about him that hadn’t been there before. Eggsy couldn’t help thinking that he was the cause of it.

“Lock the doors as per usual, I reckon?” a short, cheerful man was saying. A friend of Harry’s, Eggsy remembered – or at least as close a friend a non-Kingsman agent could get – and the owner of the restaurant.

“Yes, please, don’t worry about me,” Harry said, offering the man a small smile over his shoulder.

Oliver chuckled, shaking his head as he carried the last of the silverware back inside. “I never know how you get down from here if you can’t use the stairs inside, and I’m afraid to ask. Well, stay as late as you like, eh? I’m headed back with Margery.”

“Thank you, Oliver,” Harry replied, his voice crisp and clean as ever. “But I won’t be a moment.”

The ghost of a smile played around the edges of Eggsy’s lips. Always the gentleman. A wave of fondness washed over him at the thought, at the memories he’d shared with Harry. Lessons on eating, with a few only half-joking quips thrown in about the exceptions to the normal rules of etiquette he’d have to make if the queen were present. Lessons on making a martini, which mostly amounted to lessons on how to elegantly stir a glass of gin because that’s all Harry ever really wanted in his martinis and Eggsy didn’t really like the taste of vermouth either. Lessons on gentle touches and soft gazes as they stood in the fitting room and Harry stripped him bare to fit his suit because the usual tailor conveniently wasn’t there that day and Harry knew enough about tailoring to know what to do and neither of them seemed to mind.

Lessons on love, when Eggsy had lain in the backseat of the Kingsman cab and could do nothing except bleed out as Harry fell apart over his body.

“I know you’re there, Eggsy.”

The soft voice jolted Eggsy out of memory. It was Harry who had spoken, unmoved from his seat.

“Why don’t you come down?”

It was conversational, easy. As if it were three years ago and Eggsy was still a Kingsman candidate and Harry was asking him about how his day of training had gone after a long week. Almost without meaning to, Eggsy slipped off of the roof and dropped down onto the terrace, landing lightly in the shadows. His small backpack bounced once against his back as his feet struck the ground.

He couldn’t help but notice the slight twitch of Harry’s lips as he approached, as if he were about to smile but couldn’t quite bring himself to.

“Eggsy.”

He almost started at the sound of his name. Harry had said it the same way he always used to, with a bit of fondness, a bit of exasperation, vowels round and consonants crisp, but it was strange hearing it all the same, even after the weeks they’d spent together taking down Ross and his network.

“How are you, Eggsy?”

Eggsy’s mouth was dry. “I’m…fine,” he said. It wasn’t quite a lie, but it wasn’t the truth.

Harry watched him for a long moment. “Please, sit,” he said finally, gesturing towards the chair. “Would you like anything to drink?”

There was a second glass, empty, next to the tall bottle of scotch standing slightly off-center on the table and on the corner of a napkin. Harry saw his gaze flash to it; a small smile curved the corner of his lips and he popped it open, pouring until the glass was three-fourths full. There was a new scar on his hand that hadn’t been there before; Harry saw his eyes following the silver sheen as he pulled out the chair and sat. “Ah. It’s nothing to worry about. Nicked myself while cutting grape tomatoes.”

“Cutting grape tomatoes? What d’you cut grape tomatoes for?” His voice was hoarse; it had been weeks since he’d really used it. He took a sip of the scotch and felt it burn his throat.

“I find that in salads, grape tomatoes cut in half make for easier spearing with a fork than whole tomatoes. I suppose my attention slipped for a moment, and so did the blade.”

Eggsy felt something tugging at the corner of his mouth. It was a few moments before he remembered that Ross was dead, a few moments before he remembered that he was allowed to smile. “Gettin’ cocky, aren’t you? Think you know your way around a knife just ‘cause you can use ‘em in a fight, then you go an’ cut yourself.”

A broad smile spread itself across Harry’s face. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“You wanker.”

Harry chuckled. “It’s good to see you, Eggsy.”

It was like the knife that had cut Harry’s hand drove itself into Eggsy’s chest. The breath rushed out of him and his heart clenched, the pain radiating out through his shoulders. “Yeah,” he said, slightly breathlessly. “You too, Harry.” And it hurt with how true it was, with how much Eggsy had missed him. _Still_ missed him.

Harry looked almost radiant, as if Eggsy’s presence had been enough to drive away the cloud of shadow that had been hanging over him. “What have you been up to these past few weeks?”

 _Missing you_.

“Not much,” Eggsy said. “Mostly just…hangin’ out on rooftops. Enjoyin’ freedom. Trying to get used to the feeling of not havin’ to look over my shoulder every few minutes.” A slight breeze swept over the balcony, ruffling Harry’s hair ever so slightly and carrying his scent towards Eggsy. “An’ that.” He gestured vaguely at the air. “Listening to the wind. I never used to pay attention to it before, but I suppose after spending two years –” He broke off. Harry didn’t need to hear about that again. He knew what Eggsy’s life had been, and Eggsy knew how much it hurt him to hear it, no matter how much he’d tried to hide it, for Eggsy’s sake. He knew Eggsy didn’t want pity, an unsuccessful attempt at understanding.

“I’ve been watchin’ the shop. An’ you,” he said instead, hesitantly. Harry’s expression didn’t change. Eggsy hadn’t expected it to; Harry was a Kingsman agent, after all, and he’d been trained his entire life to know when he was being followed. He knew that it had been out of respect that Harry hadn’t acknowledged his presence before, that he’d allowed Eggsy to watch quietly from the shadows and didn’t say a word. “I…I wanted to see how you was doing. You and Merlin and Roxy. And JB, of course.” He huffed a laugh. “I miss that dog.”

“You can come see him anytime,” Harry said gently. “He misses you too, you know.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

Eggsy laughed again. “Maybe.” It hadn’t really hit him how much he’d missed talking to Harry, and that was the danger of it. He was supposed to stay away from him. If he started talking to him he’d get close to him again, and it would be that much harder to leave again when he needed to.

“And your family, have you seen them?”

Something in Harry’s voice made Eggsy think that he already knew the answer, but he spoke anyway. “Nah. They get along fine without me.”

“Where have you been sleeping?”

He knew the answer to this one too. Eggsy looked away.

“The nights have been cold,” Harry said, almost venturingly.

Eggsy shrugged. “It hasn’t been bad.”

“Well, recently, no. But in December? January?” Harry asked wryly.

Eggsy shrugged again, his fingers tightening defensively around the glass. “It’s been a mild winter. And it’s not like I haven’t dealt with it b’fore. Winter missions an’ all. I know what to do if it gets cold.”

“My window has been unlocked.”

Another grin tugged at the corner of Eggsy’s mouth. “I know. You’re such a romantic sap, you are.”

Harry echoed his smile and sipped his scotch. “Mm, yes. I suppose so.”

“So what was you waitin’ for, for me to climb up your balcony and sneak into your room? That’s some Romeo an’ Juliet shit right there, that is.”

“I never objected to a little Shakespeare.” Harry sipped his scotch again. The glass flashed briefly white as it reflected the light of the stars and moon above them. The question hung unspoken between them.

_So stay with me?_

After so long, after so many weeks of Eggsy hurting him by staying away, and here Harry was, still asking him if he wanted to stay. _Inviting_ him to stay.

“You’ve been sleepin’ late,” Eggsy said, instead of addressing it, because he couldn’t let himself be tempted. He’d meant it to sound concerned, but it was hard to put emotion back into his voice; another reminder of what Ross had done to him.

But Harry understood. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, and the corners of his eyes crinkled in a smile. “It’s nothing I’m not used to.”

“Yeah, I know.” Eggsy felt a rush of fondness run through him as he thought of that last day before the dog test, the day they’d spent together and the night out on Harry’s balcony looking at the few stars they could see that were bright enough to peek through London’s nightlights. He’d fallen asleep against Harry’s shoulder.

“I’ve missed that,” Eggsy murmured, almost to himself.

He could see the twinkle of those stars reflected in Harry’s glasses now, and in his eyes, and in the silvery sheen the moonlight cast on his hair. Eggsy’s scotch was a dark brown in the darkness; only Harry’s was still a light gold where a ray of light from the restaurant’s interior hit the glass through the shutters of the window, and his hand where it lay was dusted bronze over the silvery blue that the moonlight painted it.

Harry was beautiful, Eggsy thought, sitting there and watching him. The light of the restaurant flickered off as the owners closed down for the day, and the warmth snapped shut over his face but his eyes were still piercingly bright. It was like they held their own light that shone through in the rich amber with which they burned.

“How are you, Eggsy?” Harry asked again, and it was soft like the breeze that was still ruffling his hair, intimate like a lover’s touch. They were well and truly alone now, both washed in moonlight, speckled by starlight.

“I’m –”

 _Fine_ , he wanted to say again, wanted to lie. But there was something in Harry’s voice this time that stopped him, made him want to tell the truth. Perhaps it was the openness of it, the vulnerability that thrummed through his words, that peeled back the walls he’d built around himself, or perhaps not. Perhaps it was just the fact that it was Harry Hart, the man he loved most in this world, asking him for his trust.

“I’m tired,” he said honestly, and it sounded bone-chillingly hollow, even to him. “I’m just so fuckin’ tired. I don’t want to have to think about all… _this_ …anymore. All of the shit I’ve done. Even if I don’t feel nothin’ when I think about it. I’m tired of bein’ tired.”

Harry’s eyes softened. “Eggsy,” he murmured, and his hand slid forward on the table as if to reach for Eggsy’s hand, but then he stopped. His hand rested there on the table; a question, an invitation. “You can come back, you know. You don’t have to stay away. You can come back to Kingsman, and we’ll help you. _I’ll_ help you.”

“But would you trust me?” Eggsy let out a humorless laugh. “Kingsman only condones the risking of a life to save another, isn’t that right? And everythin’ I’ve done for the past two an’ a half years has gone against that. You took a risk trusting me with Ross, and you won’t do it again.”

“You were saving your family,” Harry said quietly. “And you had no way of knowing what he was planning. No one can hold that against you. And no one can forget that it was only because of you that we were able to bring him down in the end.”

“Fuck that.” Eggsy bit his cheek and looked away. Anger was bubbling under his skin again, as it did so often nowadays. His fingers were tingling, and his feet practically itched with the desire to run away, to close himself off again, to turn back into A597-3 so he wouldn’t have to feel the shame of what he’d done, because A597-3 didn’t feel anything. “I wasn’t just _risking_ lives neither, I was _taking_ ‘em. Taking dozens and dozens of lives – sixty-seven, before my last mission. Which was to kill you, in case you forgot.”

“I haven’t,” Harry said. “But neither did you succeed.”

“I shot Merlin.” Eggsy spat it out. “I fucking shot Merlin.”

“It wasn’t your choice. And he’s alive. And he’s forgiven you. Not to mention that fact you and your family would have died otherwise. You did what you could.”

Eggsy hissed, his hands clenching into fists. For a moment, the whip descended over his back once again. For a moment, he had a gun in his hands and blood on his fingertips.

“No,” he hissed, almost to himself. “A597-3 is _dead_.”

“You’ve been through so much, Eggsy,” Harry said gently. His hand was still there. Pale and clean. Untouched. “But you can stop running now. You can’t blame yourself for something that was out of your control, and I’ll be there with you, every step of the way.”

“How can you know?” Eggsy bit out, and anger and frustration and guilt lent an edge to his words. He wielded them like a knife, feeling a sudden overwhelming rush of rage and the desire to _hurt_ , to see Harry flinch back from him, to see him stand and leave and cut Eggsy out of his life like he deserved. “Before, you said you understood the numbness, but how can you possibly know what it feels like to kill innocent people – not great people, mind, but still innocent people? How can you know what it’s like to fight people who have no chance, to know that you’ll have to kill ‘em ‘cause it’s your job to kill ‘em? To take ‘em out in cold blood, knowin’ that they wouldn’t stand a chance even if they’d known you was there? To wonder if it’s worth it, to save your family? And then after that to know that you’re going to have to have to kill your friends, the people you love? It don’t even matter that _you’ve_ forgiven me. How can you know how it feels to be forced to do somethin’ like that?”

Harry didn’t answer. He was completely still, save for the slight shift of his shoulders with every breath. The silence dragged on, and Eggsy’s anger gave way to pain, and then regret, for the anger he’d let slip through into his voice. Distantly, an engine revved.

“South Glade Mission Church,” Harry said finally.

“South – what?”

“South Glade Mission Church, Kentucky,” Harry repeated.

Eggsy frowned. “I don’t understand –”

“I know what it’s like, Eggsy,” Harry said, and there was something in the way his voice turned hard that caused a tremor of apprehension to worm its way into Eggsy’s heart. “The part about innocent people, at least. I know how it feels to be forced to kill. To be part of a bigger plan to disrupt what little order is left in the world.”

The confusion and doubt must have shown on his face; Harry let out a sigh, the lines of his face brought out in sharp contrast. Eggsy did his best not to be distracted by the darkening of his eyes. “I’m sure you remember how Richmond Valentine nearly caused a global catastrophe?”

Eggsy’s frown deepened. “Yeah, an’ Percival going an’ killing ‘im is what got Kingsman on Ross’s radar in the first place.”

A wry smile turned the corners of Harry’s mouth. “Well, I had the misfortune of being present when Valentine decided to test his device for the first time. South Glade Mission Church, Kentucky, the day after you – the day after Ross took you. The SIM cards…they emitted a radio wave which completely took over the rage centers of my brain. And the brains of those around me, of course, but the difference was that those around me weren’t people like us; they never stood a chance. I was completely aware of what I was doing, but I had no control. I wanted…I _wanted_ to kill them. Over seventy, eighty people, in there, and fifty-two of them are dead because of me. All in the span of three minutes. And I know the number would have been higher if the rest of them hadn’t been allowed to kill each other first before I got to them.”

Eggsy’s breath left his lungs in a soft huff.

“I believe you know…I believe you’re _aware_ of my, ah, proclivity for violence,” Harry said, the wry smile still curving his lips, and Eggsy could hear a note of pain in his voice. “I do not have a problem putting people in their place, when I see necessary. Nor do I have a problem completing missions that involve killing for a…greater good, let’s say. Killing the bad guys is not what I take issue with. But this…being forced to be part of Valentine’s plan, forced to kill for no reason other than to test the efficacy of his tech…they were racist, sexist, homophobic pieces of shit, all of them, and that’s putting it lightly, but they were defenseless against me, and while they certainly deserved to be put in their place I don’t know if that merits as brutal a death sentence as the one they were given. As the one _I_ gave them.

“So I do know a bit, Eggsy,” Harry continued gently. “I do have a sense of what you’re going through, even if I know it cannot be on the same scale. I still…I still have nightmares about it,” Harry confessed, and Eggsy felt something clench in his chest at the crack in Harry’s perfect composure, at the vulnerability in his voice and the trust that he knew Harry put in him in order to be able to tell him this. “It’s been three years, and it still hasn’t fully gone away. I still see all of those people every time I’m on a mission and need to kill, every time I’m training and see the flash of a knife or hear the bang of a gunshot. And perhaps it will never go away. Perhaps the guilt will always be there, no matter how hard I try to convince myself otherwise.

“But I don’t mean to make this about me. My point is, we’ve both done terrible things, but I didn’t have a choice, and neither did you when you went on those missions. The memories are still there, and the most I can do is try to find a way to live with them, and to try and forgive myself for what I’ve done.”

Eggsy looked away, his anger spent, and he was numb again. “I can’t help thinkin’ I would’ve been better off dead,” he said quietly, after a long silence. “That I’d be – that the _world_ would be better off with me dead.” _And you would be, too_. “It certainly would’ve been, a few months ago. The number of people I killed, all the while gettin’ Ross closer to his goal...”

Harry gave a soft, almost broken laugh. “And then what? You die, and what happens next? Your mother and sister, what about them? Daisy loves you, Eggsy. You mother loves you. Merlin – he might not show it, but he cares. He’s still quite fond of you, really. Roxy lost a best friend that day, and then she thought she had gotten you back. If she lost you again now…she’s tough, but not all the way through. And as for me –” He broke off.

Eggsy dared to glance up, dared to meet Harry’s brilliant brown eyes, even if just for a moment.

The question was asked in silence. _As for you?_

“As for me, I certainly don’t think I’m tough enough to stand losing you again,” Harry said quietly. _I love you_ , he meant, and his words were like stones, cracking the thin glass of Eggsy’s heart. “I know it’s selfish of me, but it would break me if I lost you now.”

“I tried to forget you,” Eggsy said, even though he hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t meant for Harry to know that part, hadn’t meant to hurt him again. And he refused to acknowledge the irony that in trying to forget Harry, he’d tried to do the very thing he’d been trying to prevent for the past three years.

Harry fell silent.

“I tried to forget you,” Eggsy repeated, and he couldn’t meet Harry’s eyes, couldn’t bring himself to look at the pain he knew he would find there, couldn’t bring himself to see how he had hurt yet another person who didn’t deserve it. “I was a weapon. That’s all I was. I was used to kill people – innocent people – and yeah, it kept my mum and Daisy safe, but…I stop an’ think about it an’ no matter what I did to help bring Ross down, all I can think about is how many people I killed. And they had families too, they had a mum who loved them, a little sister who looked up to them. And who was I to take that all away, even if I didn’t know what Ross was plannin’?

“And you deserve better than that, Harry. You deserve better than _me_. That’s why I left. That’s why I tried to forget you and how I felt about you. I thought that if I could forget, then maybe I could stay away easier, and maybe…I don’t know, maybe you’d be able to forget me too. But I couldn’t forget.” His nose was burning, and his eyes stung. “I couldn’t fuckin’ forget about you, you bastard.” He huffed a laugh, and the words slipped out almost without him meaning to. “I couldn’t stop lovin’ you.”

Harry was silent for a long moment.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally.

Eggsy looked up. “What?”

“It’s my fault.”

Eggsy blinked. “ _What_?”

“I should’ve followed you more closely,” Harry said, and Eggsy could see anger simmering beneath the warm brown depths of his eyes, could hear the bitterness in the rich amber of his voice, and he knew enough about sitting on guilt to realize that Harry had been thinking about this for a long time. “I was supposed to dart you that day. If I’d been following you more closely I might have noticed you were missing. But I…I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was so selfish, really, that the thought of your memories of me fading was enough to deter me from doing what I needed to do. But it did, and when I was unable to locate you at the end of the twenty-four hours…I knew you didn’t want to forget, I thought you were…I don’t know, angry. That you needed space. So I turned a blind eye. I let it go. I thought I was doing you a favor, letting you keep your memories with no one else the wiser. And all that time, you were with _him_.” He spat out the last few words, and by then, Eggsy was incredulous.

“I don’t fuckin’ believe…don’t you fuckin’ dare blame yourself for this,” Eggsy said fiercely. “It wasn’t your fault. If you’d noticed and gone after ‘im then, you’d have been killed. It was hard enough even with me tellin’ you everythin’ I knew an’ goin’ with you, could you imagine going in blind?”

“I should have tried,” Harry said. His hand had curled into a fist on the table, scar standing out silvery white against the shadows of his skin.

“No,” Eggsy said. “You shouldn’t have. It’s not your fault what happened.” _And if you had, if you’d darted me and done what you were supposed to do, I wouldn’t know you now. And I would give the rest of my sanity to Ross if it meant I would remember you. Or if, God forbid, you’d gone in after me, not knowing everything that you do now, and Ross got his hands on you –_

Harry’s eyes flashed – or rather, his glasses did, lenses blazing a brilliant white under the moon as he looked up at Eggsy, meeting his gaze. “Look at you, Eggsy,” he said, and his voice was soft but heavy with emotion. “Look at what he’s done to you.”

Once again, Ross’s whip laid his back open. Once again, the brand seared his skin.

“Can you imagine where I’d be without you here, now?” Eggsy asked quietly. “If you’d come for me then, you wouldn’t have made it out. And if it wasn’t for you taking me out on my last mission, I’d still be with Ross.”

“Roxy would’ve done it instead of me.”

“From all the way across London?” Eggsy shook his head. “Maybe. But you convinced them to trust me again, remember?”

“Roxy would’ve –”

“You’re the one who brought me back,” Eggsy interrupted. He didn’t want to hear Harry’s excuses, his attempts at putting himself down. “You’re the one I trust, Harry, you’re the one who gave me the strength to go back there an’ take out that whole fuckin’ organization, you’re the one who –” He broke off, huffing a laugh. “Hell, you’re the one I’m talking to _right fuckin’ now_ , for fuck’s sake, and I wouldn’t want to be talkin’ to anyone else.”

“You –”

“Shut up, Harry,” Eggsy said. “I don’t give a flyin’ fuck about what might’ve happened. There’s no use in blamin’ yourself. What’s done is done, an’ now we’re both here, an’ that’s all that really matters, innit? Don’t go givin’ me a speech about forgivin’ myself for something I can’t change if you’re gonna sit here an’ not be able to do the same for yourself.”

Harry looked at him. He didn’t speak. There was nothing he could say.

“Don’t fight with me on this,” Eggsy said. “Let it go. For me.”

Harry was silent. Finally, he took a long drink of scotch, tipping his head back and downing the rest of his glass before setting it down on the table. “For you,” he said, and it sounded like it took an enormous amount of effort.

Eggsy forced himself to relax, forced the knots in his shoulders and back to loosen, forced the fierce anger to subside. “Good,” he said. He copied Harry’s movement, finishing the rest of his scotch and setting his empty glass down. “So what now?”

“I don’t find that I have any prior engagements,” Harry said quietly. His hand was still fisted on the table. “I quite fancy a walk through the streets, would you care to join me?”

For a moment, Eggsy almost said no. _Keep your distance_ , his brain tried to remind him. _Keep your distance, keep yourself safe, keep him safe._ But the offer was too tempting; the breeze was growing slightly chilly and he’d appreciate the heat his muscles would generate with some movement. He refused to think about how the fact that it was Harry he’d be walking with played any role in his decision.

He shrugged. “Yeah, alright.”

The fist on the table loosened. Harry stood, tucking his chair back under the table. He didn’t offer Eggsy a hand; he knew that he was still skittish and needed time to grow accustomed to the normal processes of human interaction. He took the half-empty bottle of scotch instead, walking over to the railing of the balcony and swinging himself over it. He caught the edge with his free hand and lowered himself down easily, dropping the last few feet to the ground below. Eggsy followed, landing lightly beside him.

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Eggsy could feel the wool of Harry’s sleeve brushing up against him from time to time, saw the occasional glances in his direction. There was something hesitant about the way Harry moved, as if he wasn’t sure what he was allowed to say or do now that the location had changed.

They turned left at the corner, crossing the silent road and retreating into the dark safety of the street beyond. It wasn’t a route that lead directly to anywhere Eggsy was familiar with, but he let Harry take the lead on a seemingly meandering path.

“How is this?” Harry asked presently, his voice a ripple in the silence. “Walking, I mean. I hope it isn’t too strenuous for you?”

“You mean because of…” Eggsy trailed off, gesturing vaguely at his zipped sweater, below which lay two small, neat scars where Ross’s bullets had pierced his body several months earlier, and below that which lay masses of scar tissue where the bullets had exploded inside of him and ripped him apart.

“Yes,” Harry said quietly. “After the mission I’ve been constantly worrying about you. I was afraid that…that something would happen, and that there would be no one around.”

Eggsy shrugged. “I’m alright. As long as I don’t move or twist around too much, I barely feel ‘em anymore. I get a little sore if I’ve been climbin’ around on rooftops for too long in bad weather.”

“You’ve healed well, then?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Eggsy hesitated. “All thanks to you, y’know.”

Harry gave a small, slightly incredulous laugh. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Well, you an’ the driver an’ Merlin, I suppose, since you all got me back to Kingsman quickly enough that I…well, that I survived. And then thanks to the surgeons who actually put me back together. But you killed the sniper first. If you hadn’t…” Eggsy trailed off. There was no need to say what the outcome would have been otherwise.

Harry was silent for a few moments. “In that case, I am immeasurably grateful for my reflexes,” he murmured.

Again, silence stretched on between them as they walked. A car approached from the other side of the road, its headlights blindingly bright for a moment, and then it swept quietly past them. It had begun to rain; just a light sprinkle of water falling from the sky and settling on the wool of Harry’s suit like fine particles of dust, floating on his hair like thousands of tiny crystals. The rain didn’t bother Eggsy; the small pinpricks of cold on his skin were refreshing, reminding him of his freedom, washing away his guilt. They continued to walk on in silence for a while, and the rain continued to fall in a light mist, and Eggsy tried not to think about leaving Harry again.

And then Eggsy became aware of where they were.

“Are we going to your place?”

Harry stopped. “I suppose we are. My feet must have carried me here out of habit,” he said uncertainly. “I do frequent that restaurant quite often.”

A small smile turned the corners of Eggsy’s mouth. “I know.”

Harry glanced at him. “We can go wherever you want to go.”

Eggsy hesitated. “We can keep going, I guess. You do have to get home tonight eventually, right?”

Harry’s gaze softened, hard amber turning to liquid chocolate. “And you?”

Eggsy didn’t answer.

“Eggsy…” Harry trailed off, and then began again. “You can stay.”

Eggsy felt his chest clench. “I…I don’t…”

Harry almost seemed to wilt. “I don’t want to force you,” he said quickly. The words spilled out in a rush. It was uncharacteristic of him, to let his composure crack so easily, to be so easily readable. “But I care about you. I care _so much_ about you, Eggsy.” His voice broke. “I want to be able to know that you’re safe, that you _feel_ safe. But if you don’t want to –”

“That’s not it,” Eggsy blurted out. “Please, Harry, don’t think that. Even last time, it…it wasn’t that. It’s just…people I care about get hurt. My mum, Daisy, my friends – I don’t even know what happened to my friends. And I don’t want to lose you. I know you can take care of yourself,” he said, as Harry opened his mouth to speak. “But I’m…I’m scared.”

“I’ll take care of you too,” Harry said softly. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Eggsy shook his head. “I know, Harry. And I know that the chances of me runnin’ into someone like Ross again is pretty much nothin’, but if I do, and if they try an’ use the people I love against me again…” He trailed off.

Harry took a small step towards him.

“I would do anything for you, Harry,” Eggsy said quietly. “Anything. An’ that’s what scares me.”

Harry’s breath left him in a soft huff.

“I never want to be used like that again,” Eggsy continued, and it hurt him to say it, to see the pain in Harry’s face at his words. He wished it would rain harder, so it would be harder for him to see Harry clearly, harder for him to see the effect his words were having on him, however true they may be. He hoped it would make it easier for him to say what he needed to. “I don’t want anyone to be able to use anythin’ or anyone against me. I don’t want to see the people I care about bein’ put in danger because of me.” He heard his voice break, knew Harry could hear the anguish in his words. “Because I love you. I fuckin’ love you, Harry.”

Harry was silent.

“But I want to,” Eggsy said, and it was almost desperate. “I want to be with you, and I want to show the world just how much I love you.”

Still, Harry was silent. It didn’t rain harder, and Eggsy could still see Harry clearly, and he felt his chest tighten at the expression on Harry’s face.

“I understand if not,” Harry began. “But if you’re willing to take a chance, I’m here. And we’ll have all of Kingsman behind us this time, to keep you safe, to keep your family safe. I know it’s not up to me, but I’m willing to take the chance if you are.”

A chance. It was so tempting. Perhaps it was the rain that remained a stubborn light drizzle, letting Eggsy look up to meet Harry’s gaze, that caused him to weaken; the heavens knew it was easier for him to be strong when he wasn’t looking someone in the eye, for him to walk away when he couldn’t see the pain he was causing.

“We might not have gotten all of Ross’s network,” Eggsy said despite himself.

“I know.”

“Someone might come after you because of me.”

“I know.”

“You could be in danger.”

A small smile turned the corners of Harry’s mouth. “What do you think my job is?”

Eggsy let out a shuddering breath. He felt his resolve starting to shatter, and there was nothing he could do about it, nothing he _wanted_ to do about it.

And maybe, just maybe, that was okay.

_You both have a much better chance of healing if you see each other, talk to each other._

He might not deserve to heal, but Harry certainly did, and if him being by Harry’s side would help…

He took a small step forwards, towards Harry. “Can I?” he asked softly. Harry’s arms opened slightly and Eggsy let himself walk forward until he was in Harry’s warmth, resting his cheek against Harry’s chest over the steady beating of Harry’s heart, and he felt Harry’s arms close around him, felt the comforting weight of Harry’s chin in his hair.

“I love you,” Harry murmured, and Eggsy felt his arms tightening around him. For the first time since Ross brought him in, he didn’t flinch.

Harry’s lips were in his hair, brushing against the side of his ear, and his cool, sweet breath washed over Eggsy’s cheek. “I love you so much, Eggsy.”

“I don’t deserve –” Eggsy began, and the words didn’t come entirely out of habit.

“You deserve the _world_ , darling,” Harry said softly, and Eggsy could hear the faint shake in his voice at the emotion he couldn’t hold back. “You deserve everything good the universe has to offer, and you deserve to be loved, and you deserve so much more than what’s been given to you.”

Eggsy’s eyes were burning. He couldn’t bring himself to raise his arms around Harry, couldn’t bring himself to hold him, because this man deserved better, and maybe it would be easier on both of them later if he just didn’t respond and let Harry walk away, no matter how much it hurt. Maybe Harry would have the strength to do what he could not.

But Harry didn’t walk away. Eggsy should have known that by now. Harry was devoted to him, entirely and forever, and he wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.

“I will love you until the end, if you let me,” Harry murmured.

 _Until the end_.

“Well that’s just not fair,” Eggsy mumbled. “How is anyone supposed to say no to that?”

“You don’t have to say no.” Harry nosed at his cheek, the slightest stubble on his chin scraping gently against Eggsy’s jaw like fine sandpaper. “You don’t have to be a weapon anymore, love. You don’t have to keep running away. You can come home with me.”

It was more of a plea than anything else; Eggsy could hear the note of longing thrumming through the other man’s voice, a longing that was a deep, throbbing ache, echoed in his own heart.

_You can come home with me._

The thought came to his mind before he could remember to force it away. _Why not?_

He lifted his arms and closed them around Harry’s waist, lacing his fingers together at the small of Harry’s back as if it would lock his grip and stop anything or anyone from making him let go. He leaned into Harry’s touch and inhaled, smelling the almost-familiar aftershave and light puff of cologne and the slight muskiness that was _Harry._ He thought he’d forgotten how Harry smelled, but standing there, he realized that he never did, and never could. He let the warmth of Harry’s body seep through the clothes between them until it felt like it could have been Harry’s skin pressed directly against his own, and let the temptation of the thought of being loved wash over him.

“Okay,” he whispered.

It wasn’t quite spring yet, but there was rain in the air, and somehow, inexplicably, the ghost of something sweet, like the aftermath of freshly cut grass in the lazy heat of summer.

 

 

 

Harry’s flat was only a few minutes’ walk away, but Eggsy’s hair was damp with drizzled rain by the time they got there. Harry pressed the palm of his hand to the golden panel of his door just above the handle; the biometric scanner beeped as it was unlocked, and Harry opened the door and gestured for Eggsy to enter.

Eggsy stepped in, squinting involuntarily as the automatic lights flickered on. He heard Harry close and latch the door behind him, and then there was a soft touch on his shoulder.

“Come inside.”

Eggsy followed Harry a few more steps towards the small closet; the door swung open noiselessly.

“Shoes?” Harry asked, slipping off his own Oxfords and lining them up neatly on a shoe rack, toes pointed carefully in.

 _Regardless of what you do personally, it is considered rude to directly request that a guest remove their shoes upon entering your home_ , Harry had said, the first time he’d invited Eggsy to his place.

Eggsy swallowed. Harry wasn’t being rude, no, that wasn’t it. It was that Eggsy wasn’t a guest.

When Harry asked Eggsy to stay, he didn’t just mean for tonight.

Eggsy toed off his trainers wordlessly, handed them to Harry, and stepped back. He didn’t miss that Harry’s shoe rack was just slightly too big for a man living alone with only a few pairs of shoes, but he didn’t think too much more about it. It was already so difficult to believe that he was being allowed to stay here with Harry, with the man he loved. The thought that Harry had already made adjustments for him, that perhaps he had even _hoped_ for this…

Harry shrugged off his overcoat and hung it up before turning questioningly to Eggsy.

“I’m good, thanks,” Eggsy said. Or rather, what he meant to say, but all he could manage was a shake of his head. The sweater he wore wrapped around his body like a hug, made him feel safe, made him feel protected. He wasn’t willing to part with it just yet. Nor was he willing to part with his backpack, and he slung it more tightly over his shoulders.

Harry made no comment. “I believe JB was sleeping upstairs,” he said quietly, with a soft smile. “Otherwise he would have been here to greet you already.”

Sure enough, there was the sound of small paws bouncing down the steps, and a few moments later the small greyish-brown body emerged from the darkness of the rest of the house, galloping happily towards them. Eggsy felt a smile split his face at the sight of the pug and he crouched down to greet him; the wide, pink tongue slobbered over his chin.

“I missed you,” Eggsy wanted to say, but still, he seemed unable to speak. He hugged the dog to his chest instead, pressing his nose into the soft fur, feeling his heart warm at the way the dog whined and grunted and wriggled in eager greeting in his arms.

“He was at Roxy’s with Charlemagne earlier and I believe she had them both fed and walked, so he should be good to go,” Harry said quietly. “Though if you would like some time with him, I’m sure he wouldn’t object to another quick turn around the block.”

Eggsy shook his head. If he went outside now he wasn’t sure he’d have the courage to come back in again.

Harry’s eyes softened. “Alright,” he murmured. There was something in his expression that Eggsy couldn’t quite place; it took a few moments for him to recognize it as affection – no, stronger than that. Much stronger than that.

It was something more along the lines of unyielding, unapologetic devotion.

Eggsy swallowed, suddenly feeling like his throat was constricting. He stood, setting JB down on the ground where he continued snuffling happily at their shoes and ankles, and followed Harry as he headed into the kitchen. Harry set down the bottle of scotch on the table; the glass clunked dully against the wood. “Would you like some? Or gin, wine, water, anything?” His voice was gentle, almost cautious.

Eggsy shook his head again. It was like his vocal chords were frozen.

Harry watched him for another moment, and Eggsy felt like he was looking straight through him, his gaze piercing through his walls and staring into his soul.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Harry said quietly.

Eggsy swallowed. “Okay,” he rasped.

Harry didn’t move. It took another moment for Eggsy to notice his outstretched hand. He swallowed again and reached out, feeling the warmth of Harry’s palm and seeing the small smile that spread across Harry’s face at his touch.

The smile was lovely. Eggsy thought, with a little hitch in his breath, that he might do anything to see it forever.

He tightened his grip.

Harry led him upstairs; the soft carpet of the stairs felt strange beneath Eggsy’s feet even through the cotton of his socks. He was used to walking on concrete, along rooftops, on the tops of the hard walls that carefully barricaded away the safety of home from the rough otherworld, and to be on the other side of those walls again was strange and yet achingly familiar. It was these same stairs that Harry had descended when he’d been here as a Kingsman candidate almost three years ago, Eggsy remembered. It was in front of these same stairs that they had first kissed. It was these same stairs Eggsy had walked down before they’d taken JB out on a walk and Eggsy had explained that he was leaving and broken Harry’s heart.

Eggsy reached out and ran his hand lightly along the railing. It was smooth under his palm, slightly worn from generations of Galahads that had lived here, and flecks of white paint had stripped away to reveal the golden wood underneath. Much like Galahad himself, Eggsy thought. Polished hard white on the outside with a golden soul that lay hidden beneath.

“Yes, that needs replacing,” Harry mused, noticing the way he lingered at the top of the steps, gaze still fixed on the railing. His voice was barely louder than the silence that surrounded them. “I meant to put in a request several weeks ago but never got around to it.”

Eggsy swallowed. Harry’s hand was warm in his. He looked around, remembering the time he’d been to the second floor of the flat the day before the dog test at the end of his training; he shouldn’t have been surprised, considering he’d visited Harry for a night a few weeks ago before leaving and had seen it all already, but everything was still just like it was almost three years ago. The walls were still a pale cream, the carpet beige and the trim a fresh, crisp white. He was suddenly aware of how clean everything was, and of how long he’d gone without washing.

“Um. Shower,” he said hoarsely. “Sorry, I…” He trailed off, chewing his lip, his cheeks heating.

“It’s alright,” Harry said. His voice was gentle. “I don’t suppose you have other clothes with you?”

“I – one pair, but that’s it. Sorry, I should’ve brought something, I don’t want to trouble you –”

As if he had anything else to bring.

“Nonsense,” Harry said gently. He led Eggsy to the bedroom; the walls were still a pale blue, the curtains a soft off-white. There was a small dog bed in the corner, but the stool by the foot of the bed betrayed the fact that JB was allowed to sleep on the bed with Harry and used the privilege frequently.

A small smile tugged at the corner of Eggsy’s mouth.

Harry gestured towards the dresser and the closet beside it. “Anything you want is yours. There’s a spare towel in the bathroom located on the left of the stairs. You are, of course, welcome to stay here with me,” he said softly, and Eggsy’s eyes flickered towards the large bed dominating the room, “but if you would rather a room to yourself, there is a guest room down the hall.”

Eggsy hesitated. Harry was still holding his hand, loosely enough that he could let go if he wanted to.

He didn’t want to.

“I’ll stay,” he whispered.

Another soft smile drifted across Harry’s face.

“I love you, Eggsy,” Harry murmured.

Eggsy swallowed. He couldn’t bring himself to speak. The thought that this man loved him – this man who had saved the world countless times over, this man who had given his life to the service of others, this man who was wholly, indubitably _good_ – overwhelmed him, caused something to catch in his chest.

But he couldn’t leave Harry hanging like that, couldn’t let him think that Eggsy didn’t love him back when the exact opposite was true, so he squeezed his hand, tapping out the words with his forefinger on Harry’s wrist. He saw comprehension in Harry’s brown eyes, the warmth that blossomed there. He leaned up, standing on his toes, and pressed a quick, chaste kiss to the corner of Harry’s lips.

There was a brief silence.

“I’ll, um, go shower now,” Eggsy said quietly.

“Alright,” Harry murmured, and let go of his hand. It felt so much colder without him. “I can’t imagine you’ve had anything to eat yet?”

Eggsy looked down. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands without Harry holding one of them. “No.”

“No worries, I’ll make something in the meantime.”

Eggsy bit his lip. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Of course, love.” Harry leaned down and brushed his lips against Eggsy’s hair; not quite a kiss, but with enough affection to be one. “Anything in particular you would like?”

Eggsy huffed a laugh. “Look at me, Harry. I look like the kind of person who can afford to be picky right now?”

Harry hummed, a smile curving the corners of his lips. “No, well, I suppose not.”

Eggsy headed to the bathroom after Harry left to go back downstairs. The towel was on the rack just as Harry had said; it was light green and fluffy, almost too soft against his skin. He stripped and stepped into the shower as soon as the water warmed up, letting out a long sigh as it beat down against his shoulders. It was a little too hot, stinging his skin, but he welcomed it. After so much emptiness it was good to feel something again.

Still, he kept the shower short. It wouldn’t do to waste Harry’s hot water. He scrubbed down quickly and then, after washing the lightly scented soap from his body, turned off the water and stepped out.

He tried not to look at himself in the mirror. Even cleaned up and washed, he found his glance shying away from the multitudes of scars covering his body. Puckered, silvery pink skin in angry lines webbing his back where he had been whipped, in two small circles in his torso where he had been shot, in something roughly the shape of a diamond in front of his shoulder where he had been branded, in lines, long and short, jagged and neat, where he had been cut with knives. There was a gauntness to his cheeks and hollowness to his expression that was hard to look at, a hunted look in his eyes and a kind of guilt and shame at a dirtiness no amount of washing could get rid of.

He couldn’t imagine how Harry could look at him.

But perhaps it was alright, to accept something you didn’t understand.

His clothes went into the laundry basket in Harry’s room. It felt strange now, after so long of not living in a proper house, to act as if everything was perfectly normal. To remember how to live with someone else and know that they wouldn’t hurt him.

To feel some semblance of safety again.

He slipped on the extra pair of clothes he had in his bag and hung the towel back up in the bathroom. The smell of Harry’s cooking wafted up from downstairs, and he could feel his mouth watering. It had been too long since he’d had a decent meal. Too long since he’d eaten in a home.

Harry was standing at the stove as Eggsy walked downstairs and into the kitchen, stirring something in a pan. He and JB, who had been sprawled on the ground, looked up at the sound of his footsteps; a smile stretched across Harry’s face. “I trust you were able to find everything?”

“Y-yeah,” Eggsy rasped; he was still unused to speaking, and his throat already felt raw after talking to Harry this evening. He cleared his throat and bent down to scratch JB behind the ears; the pug wiggled the curled stub of his tail. “It smells good, what is it?”

“Chicken and rice. I hope that’s to your liking?”

A small smile tugged at the corners of Eggsy’s mouth. “I told you, I ain’t picky.”

“Mm. Nevertheless, everyone has their preferences.” Harry paused and switched off the heat. “Right. Well, your timing was perfect; it’s just about ready. You can sit anywhere at the table.”

Harry brought the plates over a few minutes later. They ate quietly, save for a few small, scattered bits of conversation. Harry started those, usually, and it didn’t escape Eggsy’s attention how he stayed carefully away from the subject of Ross.

He spoke of his own life instead, of Kingsman and his missions and Merlin and Roxy and Lancelot and Gawain and everyone else Eggsy had missed. And it was nice, Eggsy thought, to hear that they had all been doing fine, and that Kingsman was still saving the world, and that nothing had changed since he left.

“We might be needing some new recruits, soon,” Harry said, almost cautiously, and Eggsy’s heart jolted.

“Why?” he rasped.

“Nothing bad, don’t worry,” Harry said quickly, sensing Eggsy’s sudden, inexplicable panic. “It’s only that Arthur’s going to be stepping down soon. This means someone else is going to be promoted, leaving their spot open.” A wry smile spread itself across Harry’s face. “I’ll need to find myself another protégée, but I doubt I’ll ever find someone who was as good as you were.”

Eggsy flushed and looked down. “They wouldn’t let me back.”

Harry’s face softened. “Would you want to come back?”

Eggsy didn’t reply. _Maybe sometime_ , he thought. _Maybe in a few months, maybe a few years, I’d be okay with letting myself want it._ But not now, not so soon.

“Did Merlin give you an earful for lettin’ me go without bein’ darted?” he asked instead, trying for a smile, but his body refused to respond.

Harry smiled for him, and didn’t comment on the change of subject. “Yes, he did,” he said. “But he came around quite quickly, and in the end, I think he was glad that I didn’t.”

Eggsy’s chest clenched dully. “Even though I shot him?” he asked ruefully.

He could see the way Harry’s grip tightened around his fork. “ _Yes_ ,” Harry said. “It wasn’t your choice.”

Eggsy swallowed. He felt a sudden rush of guilt for being the reason Harry’s smile was swept suddenly off his face, for being the reason that a cloud loomed suddenly over the table. He’d left to avoid hurting Harry, and here he was, hurting him again just hours after he’d come back.

“It wasn’t my choice,” he repeated quietly. He wasn’t sure he believed it, but Harry seemed to relax a little. Perhaps, if he told himself enough times that it wasn’t his fault, that there was nothing he could’ve done, he would start to actually believe it.

Little steps, he told himself. Little steps towards forgiveness.  

 

 

 

He followed Harry and JB up the stairs an hour later, once the dishes had been washed and put away and the lights downstairs darkened for the night. Harry turned on the lamp and climbed into bed first, shifting over to make room for him – room that JB promptly sprawled out across.

Eggsy couldn’t help the laugh that escaped from between his lips. He looked at Harry, almost absentmindedly, almost without thinking, and his breath caught in his throat, because Harry was staring at him like he was the sun after a storm, like he was the brightest star in the sky.

“You’re beautiful,” Harry murmured, as if he wasn’t aware that he was saying it out loud.

A blush heated Eggsy’s cheeks. Embarrassment, shame. He didn’t deserve the praise Harry gave him.

A soft, almost wondering smile. Harry looked like a boy, in love for the first time. “I can’t believe you’re really here.”

Eggsy swallowed, sat down on the bed. “I am,” he said quietly. He wanted to promise that he would be here to stay, that he would be here forever, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t say it, not yet.

The smile widened in a huffed laugh; Eggsy caught a brief flash of teeth. “I missed you,” Harry said.

Eggsy swallowed again, and a shiver ran through his body. Harry felt it through the mattress; he straightened, brow furrowing in concern, and Eggsy knew Harry was resisting the urge to reach out to him.

“I missed you too, Harry,” he said, and his voice rasped. “That’s why I came back.”

_Funny, that. Not too long ago I wanted you to kill me._

No.

He couldn’t imagine what exactly his death – his loss – would do to Harry, but he knew that it would break him, and Eggsy couldn’t do that to him.

He had to live, and he had to _want_ to live, if not for anything more than to do it for the man he loved.

“Do you have other things at your mum’s place?” Harry asked, after some time.

Eggsy shrugged, nudging JB’s haunches over to make room for himself to lie down. “Not really. Just some clothes an’ stuff, I guess. An’ I’m not even really sure if it’s all still there, after…” He paused, and cleared his throat.

“I can stop by tomorrow,” Harry offered quietly. “I can have Roxy come by with me and give me a hand in moving everything in. Or we can leave it, if you…if you don’t want to see reminders of certain things. I’ll get you anything you need.”

“Harry, I –” He broke off, his fists clenching. He wasn’t particularly eager to see his old things; they no longer felt familiar, not now, not after what he had done. Not after what he had gone through. They would be a reminder of who he had been before and what might have been, and to slip into his old clothes would feel fake, like he was lying about who he was now and the sins he’d committed, because it had been too long for him to be able to go back to them and feel normal. But he couldn’t ask Harry for what he offered, he couldn’t expect Harry to give him a new life and replace everything he didn’t want to see anymore. It wouldn’t be fair, Harry had already given him so much and he didn’t deserve more, he couldn’t accept more than what he had now, even this, even staying in his home despite the fact that Harry was the one who had asked him to stay was more than he should’ve ever taken –

“Eggsy.” His name, spoken softly, gently, cut through the chaos of his thoughts. He felt Harry’s fingertips against the back of his hand.

He swallowed, forced his hand to relax.

“It’s alright, Eggsy,” Harry murmured. “We can figure it out tomorrow.”

Eggsy bit his lip, forced his breaths to slow, allowed himself to nod.

The next day, they compromised. After all of the paperwork and briefing and everything had been done for the day, Harry came by to pick Eggsy up and head to his mum’s place. It was a new place now; his mum didn’t know that Ross had known where they were in their old flat, but Eggsy did, and he didn’t want them staying there. His mum didn’t know all of the things Eggsy had been forced to do, but she knew he’d gone through something, and she didn’t know the extent of the danger she and Daisy had been in but she knew Roxy had been taking her and Daisy away from the house Ross had made Eggsy bring them to because it hadn’t been safe, and she didn’t want to go back there either.

So they were at a new place now. A place owned by Kingsman (though Michelle didn’t know that part either) and furnished by Kingsman. All of her and Daisy’s belongings – and any of Eggsy’s that she had wanted to keep with her – had been brought over as well, and now, a few months later, it was all mostly unpacked. Only a few boxes of Eggsy’s clothes and old belongings remained enclosed in cardboard.

Seeing his mum and sister was so much harder than Eggsy ever thought it would be.

He let them embrace him, let them fuss over him, let them be happy to see him, because they didn’t know what he had gone through, and they didn’t know what he had put them through. They didn’t know that they could’ve been hurt because of something he did, and it was easier to let them remain ignorant, to let them believe that when Roxy had gone and gotten them out of the house a few months ago, it was because of unrelated problems with their house in the neighborhood and not because there had been snipers trained on their specific location. It was easier to let Michelle think that he’d just been too busy with his job to visit the past few months, instead of that he’d stayed away out of guilt.

“You saved them,” Harry murmured in his ear, when Michelle had gone to fetch a pie out of the oven and he’d heard Eggsy let out a shaky breath as she walked away. “They’re alive and well because of you.”

_The number of times I wished that they were dead, so that I could be free…_

“I can’t do this. I can’t stay here,” Eggsy said, but Harry’s hand was warm and calming against his wrist, holding him there, keeping him from turning tail and running out.

_Running. Always running away from something._

“You can,” Harry said.

He stayed.

Michelle convinced them to stay long enough to have some pie (“Daisy made it,” she said proudly, as Daisy served it with all the care and concentration that a four-year-old has when trying not to spill something), and then they gathered up everything Eggsy wanted to bring back (it wasn’t much) and prepared to leave.

“Take some pie with you,” Michelle urged, as they stood from the table.

“For Roxy!” Daisy said cheerfully, her smile bright and her cheeks a rosy pink.

“Yes, for Roxy,” Michelle agreed. “Daisy got quite fond of her during our stay at her office, didn’t you?”

Daisy giggled.

“We’ll take some, thank you,” Harry said with a smile. “And we’ll be sure to tell her you said hello.”

“Tell her to drop by when she can, too,” Michelle added.

“Of course.”

Michelle wanted a few words alone with Harry before they left. They retreated into a separate room, and Eggsy let Daisy sit on his lap as she drew a picture of what looked to be a dragon, surrounded by various strangely-shaped blobs that Daisy patiently explained were all the creatures of the forest listening to it tell a story. Michelle and Harry appeared a quarter of an hour later, and Daisy let Eggsy up, and it became socially acceptable for Eggsy to run away from them again.

“What did she say?” he asked in the cab, once all two boxes of his belongings had been loaded into the trunk and they’d said their goodbyes.

Harry hesitated. “Well, first, she wanted me to thank Roxy again for calling on V-Day and telling her to lock herself away from Daisy. I don’t think she knows that you know about it,” he said, glancing at Eggsy to gage his reaction; he’d already been with Ross by the time V-Day happened and had been unable to do anything to make sure his family was safe. Hell, he’d been unable to do anything to make sure he _himself_ was safe.

Burning.

That’s what Ross had been doing to him on V-Day.

He remembered every single day Ross had tortured him as clearly as every single day he’d taken a life.

“And she told me to take care of you,” Harry said, hesitantly, when Eggsy took the news in silence.

Eggsy swallowed, forced himself to speak. “Does she…what does she know about me? Me an’ Kingsman, I mean. Or me an’ anythin’, really.”

“I don’t think she knows much about Kingsman, other than that it’s some do-good organization that your father was a part of, that Roxy and I are a part of, and that you were somehow, at some point, related to it. She knows that the three of us know each other, though I don’t think she’s exactly sure how that worked out, either. I believe she thinks you’re still in the marines,” Harry said, with a slight smile.

“Ah.” Eggsy swallowed again. “Yeah, that’s what I had to tell her.”

He saw Harry’s jaw clench. “Yes. I suppose she thinks we have something to do with the marines and the military, then, if she knows we know each other. She knows nothing about Ross and that entire situation. We made sure…we thought it would be best to keep her in the dark, and to ultimately let you make the decision of whether or not you wanted her to know.”

Eggsy was quiet. It seemed cruel to lie, but he knew it would be crueler to tell her the truth of what had happened, of why she and Daisy had moved with his ‘new job’ two years ago, of why Eggsy had stayed away and what he had gone through.

She’d already lost her husband. She didn’t need to know that she’d almost lost a son too.

“And she knows you’re staying with me,” Harry said gently, after a slight pause.

At that, Eggsy let a small smile drift over his face. “I suppose she thinks we’re together, yeah? With you helpin’ me move my stuff in an’ all.”

Harry hummed. “She did seem to imply that, yes. She…I don’t think she quite approved of it at first; certainly, it’s always going to be difficult for her to see the man who brought her the news of her husband’s death, even if it was many years ago. It must be even more difficult to see that man with her son now. And of course there’s my age,” he added with a soft laugh. “She said that if this is what you wanted, she couldn’t stop us, but she asked me to take care of you, and to keep you safe, and to keep you happy.” Harry glanced at him, a bit uncertainly. “I told her I would do my very best.”

_I don’t doubt that. But can I make you happy? Can I keep you safe?_

“And she was pleased with that, yeah?” Eggsy asked quietly.

“Yes, I think so.”

Eggsy hesitated. “So are we… _are_ we together?” _Can we be, after all I’ve done? Can you be with me as something more than a mentor and a friend, knowing how damaged I am? Knowing how much I’ve hurt you?_

“If you want to be.” The answer was simple, mild. An offering.

Eggsy took a few deep breaths. “Yeah,” he said finally, and his voice was quiet, slightly cracked. “Yeah, I want to be.”

Harry reached out across the seat, and his palm was warm on the back of Eggsy’s hand.

 

 

 

Eggsy saw his old Kingsman suit in Harry’s closet that night while he was unpacking. Still zipped up in its neat black bag, untouched, tucked away in the back, and yet even the bag itself was clean of dust. His eyes met Harry’s, briefly, and then he looked down.

He couldn’t quite believe Harry had kept it. Kept it, and kept it clean.

“Thought you would’ve given it away,” he said, and his throat was tight. “Reused it or somethin’, made somethin’ else useful out of it.”

“It wasn’t mine to give away,” Harry said quietly, simply.

Eggsy shrugged. “Yeah, well…I dunno, I gave it back to you. Thought it was Kingsman’s again. Y’know, to give it to someone who was worthier of it instead of just lettin’ it sit there uselessly until the end of time. I mean, what use are Kingsman tailors if you can’t even fix an old suit?” He attempted humor, but he didn’t think it quite came out.

Harry was quiet for a long time after that. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, but there was a note of conviction in it, lending it a strength and simplicity and trust that Eggsy thought would stay with him forever.

“It has always been yours. You have always been worthy of it.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited to fix some continuity errors. This was the first chapter I wrote in this fic and originally I wasn’t actually planning on having Eggsy spend the night in chapter 10, but he ended up doing so and I forgot to update the details in this chapter. Thanks Sherlockhart for pointing it out!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roxy had said that Harry and Eggsy both had a better chance of healing together; that was why Eggsy had decided to stay, in the end. And as time passes, they do find that they both begin to heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If any of y’all are fans of Derek Walcott’s poetry you might see a bit of his The Prodigal in this chapter

**Early April 2017**

HARRY

 

Confidence was always something Eggsy struggled with after Ross. Confidence in his abilities, confidence in how Harry saw him, confidence in his self-worth. It was heartbreaking, the way Harry saw him turned into a shell of his former self, retreated behind walls, caved into himself until it was like he was hiding behind his skeleton.

Harry knew it was because of guilt. He knew the boy hated himself for what he had done, even though it had been something out of his control, and he knew the boy doubted everything he did.

Harry knew it was difficult for Eggsy to believe he loved him, and it was difficult for Eggsy to let himself love Harry. Physical intimacy beyond occasional, affectionate touches was, for the most part, strictly off-limits, and when it wasn’t, it had to be Eggsy initiating it. Even then, it rarely amounted to more than a brief embrace, a brush of the lips. Despite the touches they’d shared the last time Eggsy had been here before he’d left, despite the passionate kisses stolen in the dark of the night, Harry learned not to expect more.

For the first three weeks, Eggsy adamantly refused to go to a therapist. “I don’t need one,” the boy kept insisting, his fists clenching and the muscles tightening in his jaw, refusing to – or perhaps unable to – meet Harry’s eyes, and then the conversation was over. Eggsy hadn’t wanted to continue, and Harry hadn’t wanted to push him.

It took three weeks and two days (an embarrassingly long time, Harry thought) for Harry to realize that this, also, was because of guilt, and when Eggsy said that he didn’t need a therapist, he was actually saying that he didn’t deserve one, because he didn’t deserve to heal.

Eggsy ended up going to therapy as soon as Harry figured that out. Harry thought that perhaps he had let the pain show too easily in his eyes, that maybe Eggsy could see that him hurting himself was hurting Harry and that he would do anything to prevent that. He thought that maybe this was Eggsy’s form of atonement.

The thought sent anguish clenching at his heart.

“I’m sorry,” Eggsy kept saying after that, and Harry didn’t know how to deal with the sudden pang in his chest at how devastated the boy looked, at the way he broke and fell apart in Harry’s arms. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just feel so _angry_ all the time, so fuckin’ angry at the guilt of everythin’ I did, and when I’m not angry I’m numb and it _hurts_ , Harry, and I don’t know what to do –”

And Harry just held him, rocking him gently in his arms, as Eggsy’s body shook with sobs.

“I don’t mean to burden you,” Eggsy would say, his beautiful green eyes glistening with tears that Harry hated to see because it meant that the boy – his sweet, wonderful boy – was hurting. “I know you’ve got your own shit to deal with, and I just – I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Harry, I’m so sorry…”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Harry said quietly, even as the boy repeated the words like a chant, as if he was apologizing for his very existence.

 

 

 

He thought Eggsy got a little better with therapy. The boy was still quiet and reserved, especially regarding situations that might otherwise have brought forward one of his bright, bubbling laughs. (Instead, now, they earned only a small smile.) But he seemed a little calmer, the anger that had been simmering so near the surface now a little more dormant, a little more easily controlled.

Still, there were times when it boiled over, when the smallest thing – an overcooked piece of chicken, a cup of water spilled onto the floor – would set him off and he would go deathly silent before whipping out the door like a hurricane, with eyes like green fire and face pale and cold as a snowy sky.

Harry never followed him. He would leave his window unlocked instead, his curtains open, the lights on downstairs, and sometime during the night Eggsy would come back. Sometimes it took hours, sometimes it took days, but he always came back. And as time passed, his whirlwind departures happened less and less.

Sometimes they fought. It could have been over anything and everything, and it could have been over nothing at all. They fought, as all couples do at one point or another, and sometimes the fights could turn vicious, and they would scream things at each other that they both regretted later. Trauma was hard on both of them, and on tough days it was easy to get impatient, to let exhaustion override judgment and control, to let irritation spiral into anger and venom when the shit they still both had bottled up inside despite therapy got to be too much to deal with and demanded an outlet (the outlet which, in such cases, just so happened to be each other). Harry hated it and loved it and hated that he loved it – a complicated, frustrating mess of emotions, and if Eggsy stayed the night at all he would sleep in the guest room.

Every night Eggsy wasn’t beside him, Harry had nightmares. Every morning after a fight, Eggsy would look at him with fear in his eyes afterward, and Harry knew that he was terrified of Harry that it was one time too many, that Harry wouldn’t take him back, that Harry wouldn’t love him anymore.

Harry always took him back. Harry always loved him.

He knew they were both trying.

Harry got a little better too. He didn’t know how much of it was because of therapy and how much of it was because he knew Eggsy was by his side, but he didn’t think it mattered why, it just mattered that it did. And it was the little things too, he knew. Because trauma wasn’t just about panic attacks and flashbacks and nightmares and dissociation, as much as the movies painted it that way. It was also about weeks and weeks of emptiness and depression, random and prolonged spells of sadness or anger or pain, overwhelming guilt over something out of his or Eggsy’s control. It was reacting to certain things and feeling a certain way for reasons he didn’t understand, or getting places and doing things without knowing how he got there or how he did it.  It was being unable or unwilling to think about what happened and yet being unable to forget, and then, later, becoming so brilliant at repression and avoidance that he thought he had recovered until some small, inexplicable thing brought up the memories again. And getting better was about getting over all of that.

Harry learned what Eggsy was okay with and what he wasn’t. He once approached Eggsy too quickly, and the boy flinched away, eyes going wide with fear, breath coming harsh and fast in his throat, and he’d dissociated so badly for the rest of the day that the next morning he could remember nothing of what had happened the day before. (Sometimes, he’d dissociate for days on end without anything obvious having triggered it at all. Harry understood; he did the same too.) He once shifted a little too much in his sleep and brushed against Eggsy’s body, and then the boy was immediately straddling him, knees planted on Harry’s wrists and hands around Harry’s throat, both of their defensive instincts kicking in as they fought each other, and then they had realized what had happened and Eggsy had retreated into the corner of the room and sat there hyperventilating for two hours before Harry managed to calm him down.

After that, Harry learned to move slowly around him, to announce his presence, to keep a certain distance between them or to be very careful when there wasn’t.

Eggsy learned, too. He knew it scared Harry when he was a little too distant, or stayed away too long – or at least, Harry thought he did. He thought that perhaps that was the reason Eggsy tried to be closer with him, to try and push himself out from behind the wall he had built around himself, because he knew Harry was terrified out of his mind of losing him or hearing that he was hurt. He always greeted Harry when he returned home from HQ or left a note if he was out with JB, and, whenever he could, he always made sure to be in bed beside Harry when he woke.

As the weeks passed, they fought less, and they settled into an easy rhythm. They would wake, grab a quick bite of breakfast, and walk JB together, and then Harry would head to the shop as Eggsy filled JB’s food and water. Harry would spend the day mostly doing paperwork, occasionally doing simple, one-day missions – Merlin adamantly refused to send him on longer ones yet, and Harry was quietly grateful. Eggsy would play with JB (and occasionally Charlemagne, if Roxy wanted to bring him over) and, if he was feeling up for it, have things ready for dinner by the time Harry returned. Then they would eat, walk JB again, maybe watch a movie, and prepare for bed.

The routine was good for them, Harry thought. It was something for them to rely on, something concrete and grounding that they would know awaited them when they woke and before they slept. The next morning, the same thing.

“Promise me you’ll be safe?” Eggsy asked, just as he did every morning, even if it wasn’t a day for a mission and he knew Harry would just be sitting behind a desk for eight hours. It was part of the routine, now.

“I promise,” Harry said, just as he did every day, standing by the door.

“Promise me you’ll come back?” Eggsy asked, and no matter how many times Harry promised him, he could always see a little bit of fear in the boy’s eyes that he wouldn’t.

It hurt him, to see that.

“I promise I’ll be back tonight,” Harry said, as sincerely as he could.

(Sometimes, here, Eggsy would kiss him. Today was not one of those days.)

Eggsy swallowed; Harry’s eyes followed the movement of his throat. “Tonight,” Eggsy repeated, and stepped back. “I promise I’ll be okay.”

 

 

 

**Mid-June 2017**

 

Ross had shut the boy down. That’s what he had done to him, that was the extent of the damage.

June 21st came; three years since the day it had all started for Eggsy, three years since the day Harry had killed fifty-two people in a church in Kentucky. It was a hard day for both of them. The morning was bright, sunny, and warm, and yellow light streamed in through the curtains at dawn and fell in a thin line across the carpet. It was strangely off-setting, the way the rest of the world flew by happily without a care as to what terrible things had happened on that same day three years ago.

Eggsy did not leave the bed that day.

Harry, when he finally made it to HQ, was chosen as the new Arthur.

Everyone at Kingsman, Harry noted, was subdued.

 

 

 

**September 2017**

 

Eggsy had most of his old belongings since Harry had gone with him to get them from his mother’s place, and his clothes lay neatly folded in the drawers next to Harry’s. Sometimes, despite that, Harry caught the boy wearing one of his shirts instead, and a warm, fuzzy feeling would blossom under his collarbones and he would see the boy’s cheeks flush at his smile. Harry’s shirts were a bit long on him and a bit tight around the chest and shoulders, but if Eggsy claimed they were comfortable, Harry wouldn’t complain. If Harry woke to the love of his life wrapped in the threadbare cotton of one of his old favorite shirts, hair disheveled from sleep and eyes blinking away the night, he would feel that he had gotten more than he could have ever asked for.

Eggsy was wearing one of Harry’s shirts when he fell ill. It wasn’t terribly serious, really; he insisted that it was nothing more than a common cold, but he was shivering and feverish in the light blue silk (of course it was silk), and it had been raining for a week straight, and Harry knew how the boy’s scars ached.

Roxy came by to see him. She brought jokes, of course, and teasing quips and sharp observations about how Eggsy’s shirt looked like it would fit Harry better, but she also brought homemade orange juice and chocolate croissants, and Charlemagne to play with JB, and stories of Eggsy’s sister, who had taken a fast liking to her and who she had started to visit every Saturday, provided her schedule allowed it.

She also brought Merlin.

Harry saw the way Eggsy tensed up at the sight of the other man, at the way he couldn’t seem to look directly at him and the puckered, rough scar on his cheek. But Harry knew Merlin had forgiven him, and Merlin was gentle with the boy; he knelt by the bedside and cradled Eggsy’s hand in his own, and he smiled, and he laughed, and Harry thought that perhaps Eggsy could start to forgive himself for what he had done.

“Take care, okay?” Merlin asked, as he and Roxy stood to leave.

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, voice hoarse from coughing, and he was able to hold Merlin’s gaze. When Merlin gave him his now slightly lopsided grin, Eggsy was able to return a smile.

“Have you thought about going to see them again?” Harry asked, once they had gone. “Your family, I mean. It’s been a few months.”

Eggsy was sitting up now, wrapping the blankets tightly around himself as he took the mug of tea Harry offered him. “I’ve thought about it, yeah,” he said. “I miss them, and I figure they miss me too. But…I dunno. I’m still not sure if I can look at them an’ not remember everythin’ that’s happened to me.” He broke off abruptly, his fingers tightening to white around the mug, his jaw clenching so a muscle jumped in his cheek.

“Alright,” Harry said, and didn’t push it. With time, if things went well, everything would be alright again. But recovery – whether from a cold or from trauma – was something that couldn’t be rushed.

Eggsy was able to talk about what had happened to him again by October, seven months after he had come back to live with Harry, six months after he started therapy. He would still tense up when he spoke of it, and he’d get a certain look in his eyes that told Harry he was distancing himself from the memories, that he was numbing himself down, but he could talk about it again, and by February the next year Harry learned all of the horrible things, psychological and physical, Ross had done to him – or at least, all that Eggsy thought he would ever be willing to say.

Harry had been recovered enough from Kentucky to have spoken of it by the time Eggsy moved in with him, but it took Harry until March of the next year to be able to speak of the day he’d seen Eggsy shot in front of him. Of the day he’d heard the boy he loved beg him to kill him, of the day he’d heard the gut-wrenching terror in his voice when he’d realized that he was dying and cried for Harry to help him. It was a full year after Eggsy had come back, and over a year and a half to the day it had happened. It was a whole five months after Eggsy had been able to open up to him that Harry was able to do the same to Eggsy.

He’d always known the boy was stronger.

 

 

 

**Mid-June 2018**

 

Another year passed. Another year of therapy. Another year of healing.

This next year, June 21st was better.

“Pass me the cayenne pepper, will you?” Harry asked, glancing at the recipe Merlin had provided him with earlier that day. “I forgot to add it in before the corn.”

Eggsy reached up to the top shelf of the cabinet where Harry kept all of his spices; he had to stand on his toes to reach it and even then, his shirt rode up, exposing a sliver of pale belly and the hard jut of a hipbone; Harry could see the fine V that led down to his groin, the small trail of hairs on his lower belly. He felt heat tinge his cheeks and looked away resolutely. Not now, not yet. They’d kissed, for sure, and occasionally Eggsy allowed himself to rest his head against Harry’s shoulder, but boy wasn’t ready for more yet, and Harry wouldn’t rush him.

“I ain’t ever had crab bisque b’fore,” Eggsy said, holding out the small vial filled with a rich red powder. He sounded oblivious to Harry’s glance and the red that dusted Harry’s cheeks, but he held Harry’s glance for a split-second longer than normal, and Harry felt his heartrate jack up.

He’d be beyond stupid to assume the boy hadn’t noticed.

Fuck. A few inches of skin and Harry was about as close to Kingsman’s best honeypot agent as JB was to athletic hunting dog. A short glance and his heart was practically jumping to be worn on his sleeve.

“Well, I’ve never attempted to make it before, either. It’s Merlin’s recipe and I think you’ll enjoy it, provided I manage to prepare it correctly,” Harry mused, holding out the spoon onto which he’d shaken a small mound of pepper and doing his best not to think about hitching the boy’s shirt up around his chest, licking down his belly, pulling down his trousers and taking his entire length into his mouth. (It had almost happened once, that, both of them slightly intoxicated after celebrating New Year’s at Harry’s place with Merlin and Roxy, but before they had gotten very far Harry had felt the boy’s sudden tension, and he’d known that the boy wasn’t ready yet. It hadn’t happened again since.) “Now does this look like half a teaspoon to you?”

Eggsy looked amused; a small smile pulled at the corners of his lips. “You don’t even have proper measurin’ spoons an’ you call yourself a gentleman?”

Harry gave him a look and tsked. “It’s technically your dog’s fault, you know. He managed to steal the whole set off the counter last month and dropped them in the toilet. I couldn’t bring myself to use them again after that.”

Eggsy gave a soft laugh, glancing at the dog who was lounging so innocently by his food dish. “He’s got somethin’ to say about your cooking, I see.” Eggsy was leaning against the counter now, and there was something easy in the lines of his body where it had been unyieldingly tense before, something infinitely more relaxed in his smile; it reached his eyes, and they seemed to glow. For a moment, warmth exuded from the whole of the boy’s body. “A little more,” Eggsy said, nodding at the spoon. “You’ve got about a third.”

“Ah, thank you. JB was right; I’m not much of a cook, I tend to under-season. As you well know,” Harry said with a wry smile.

“Jesus, Harry, I was only jokin’,” Eggsy said, sounding slightly aghast. “I didn’t mean nothin’ serious. You’re a wonderful cook, really.”

Harry chuckled as he tapped a little more cayenne onto the spoon. “Perhaps. I suppose, objectively, that I am better than most, but I am certainly nothing even to close extraordinary. That was always Merlin, and I suppose my cooking standards have been shifted slightly after living with him.” Harry added the pepper into the pot and glanced once more at the recipe.

Eggsy tilted his head. The lights of the kitchen fell on his face, accentuating the line of his jaw, the hollow of his cheeks, and his eyes glimmered. “So you an’ Merlin, was that ever a thing?”

Ah. The dressing room. Eggsy remembered.

Harry snorted a laugh; it was rather undignified and ungentlemanly, but it brought a fuller smile to Eggsy’s face. “Merlin and I? Heavens, no. Nothing serious, at least. We lived together in university. We did… _try_ , many years ago, to be something more, but after some time we figured that it would be best to remain just friends.” Harry glanced at the boy, a hint of a smile playing at his lips. “You’re not jealous?”

“No,” Eggsy said. “I know I’ve got you wrapped around my finger.” But his voice was soft, almost hesitant. As if he couldn’t be sure. Still, even after so long.

“You do,” Harry said, as sincerely as he could. But he didn’t say more; the boy craved his affection, Harry knew he did, but at the same time he knew he was scared. Nearly three years of punishment for the simple crime of love wasn’t forgotten easily, even if it had been a year since Ross had been killed.

Eggsy stood up from the counter, lithe and leonine, and Harry felt a shiver run up his spine at the deadly grace with which he moved. A grace that he would’ve gotten from Kingsman, surely, but with an added darkness to it that he’d learned from years in Ross’s service. Not just a spy; an assassin.

His beautiful boy, turned murderer.

But that was behind them now. And none of it had been Eggsy’s fault. Harry didn’t – couldn’t – hold him responsible for any of it, and he didn’t think any less of the boy for what he’d done. He certainly didn’t love him any less, and he did everything he could to remind Eggsy of that.

Eggsy crossed the few feet of space that separated them, slowly, with an almost wary look in his eyes that hadn’t been there four years ago when he was still in training for Kingsman, when Harry had met him for the first time since he’d been a small child. Harry held still, quieted his breathing, and then he felt Eggsy’s arms wrap around him from behind and the warm weight of the boy’s chin on his shoulder. Hands rested gently across his belly and the boy’s chest pressed neatly against the line of his back as he steadied himself against Harry’s body; Eggsy was shorter than Harry by a good half a foot and he had to stand on his toes to reach Harry’s shoulder.

Eggsy let out a shuddering breath. “You’re too good to me, Harry,” he whispered. He paused. “And I think you need to turn down the heat.” He huffed a laugh, his breath little more than a puff of cool air against Harry’s neck, and it made the hair on his arms stand on end. Harry could feel the hard lines of Eggsy’s hipbones pressing gently against his lower back; over a year had passed since Eggsy had moved in, but he was still thinner than he had been when he left, his belly and cheeks hollowed in a way that they weren’t before, and his cheekbones, his collarbones, stood out in sharp relief under pale skin.

And oh, how Harry wanted to suck on that pale skin, to mark Eggsy as his. It distracted him, and it was a few moments before he managed to reach out and turn down the gas on the stove, bringing the soup from a rolling boil to a low simmer.

“That’s it,” Eggsy said quietly. He pressed a light kiss to Harry’s neck, and then he was gone, withdrawn, leaning against the counter again. Harry hadn’t expected more; he knew what it took for Eggsy to be even this intimate with him.

That’s what it had been, for the past year, even with therapy. Mostly, Eggsy kept his distance, kept his gaze down, kept his hands clenched in fists by his sides. Mostly, he looked and sounded as numb as he’d said he felt. But sometimes he would loosen up and his eyes would glow again, his hands would be warm against Harry’s skin. Sometimes the numbness would fade away; not to anger, as it had done the first few weeks of his moving in, but to affection. Harry treasured those moments of open affection; they were rare, and he knew they wouldn’t last long. Not yet, anyway. The boy’s emotions were still, as of now, expressed quietly.

“How was work?” Eggsy asked; an abrupt change of topic. Safety, Harry knew. Pulling himself away from intimacy, anything that could risk exposing weakness.

“Boring,” Harry said, going along with the change of subject without comment. “Paperwork, mostly. Lancelot went out on a mission last week; two days, to Australia. I think she liked the place, but the target’s bomb injured several civilians before she could get to it. Bloody sandstorms slowed her down.”

Eggsy tilted his head. “It went okay though, otherwise?”

“Yes. No civilian casualties.” Harry did his best not to get lost in the depths of the boy’s eyes. “Not that any of us really expected anything else from her. I do like to think it would have been the same with you.” He said it gently, but Eggsy seemed to shrink back a little nevertheless. A cloud briefly darkened his features, his hands gripping the countertop until his knuckles turned white, and Harry tensed reflexively; he’d gone too far, said too much. But then the darkness passed, and the light was back in Eggsy’s eyes.

“Might’ve made her second-best agent then, eh?” Eggsy asked, and the smile was back on his face. “You might’ve been sendin’ me out on all the hardest missions with her.”

Harry chuckled. “I daresay we would.”

“It’s strange,” Eggsy said, and he sounded thoughtful. “Knowin’ about Kingsman an’ all. I know I shouldn’t, an’ if old Chester’d had his way I wouldn’t. But I do, an’ I’m the only one in the world now who’s not a part of Kingsman an’ still knows a little bit about what really goes on inside.” He paused. “I do miss it, you know. Bein’ able to see you all day like when you was trainin’ me.”

“You get me all night now,” Harry said softly.

Eggsy shrugged, looking down. “Yeah, I suppose. But no one else gets to see that you’re mine.” He glanced up, a small, playful grin tugging at his lips.

Harry hummed. It made him happy, now, to see that the confidence and light Eggsy had possessed before was coming back, that he was more sure of his place in Harry’s life. “ _I_ get to see, and that’s all that matters to me.” He paused. “But if it’s important to you, I can take a day off after my next mission. We could go somewhere, if you like. And everyone would know that I’m yours.”

For a brief moment, Eggsy’s face lit up. “Really? You’d do that?”

It was like the sun was shining on him; such was the effect of Eggsy’s joy. “Of course,” Harry said.

And then the light was gone, and the darkness returned, and Eggsy seemed to shrink away again.

Light was coming back, but it was not yet here to stay.

Still, it was one of the better days. Harry knew that anyone else would have thought everything had gone back to normal, and that it was only because Harry knew Eggsy so well and Eggsy was so open with him that he was able to tell that there were still things that triggered him, still memories that haunted him, still feelings of guilt that he hadn’t gotten over.

But it was one of the better days. It had been one of the better weeks, in one of the better months, even though June was a difficult time of year for both of them. Eggsy had even gone out and gotten a job in Oliver’s old restaurant that they’d met at in March over a year ago, working as a part-time assistant dessert baker in the kitchens. Less stressful than a job as a chef, but still something to keep him busy during the day, still something to give him a sense of purpose. Sometimes Oliver would let Eggsy leave early, or let him bring back some of the leftover pastries of the day.

Eggsy was grateful for it, and Harry knew that being kept a little busy also kept him happier, so Harry was grateful for it too. Roxy and Merlin knew that Eggsy being happy meant that Harry was happy, and from a more medical standpoint, Merlin was happy because being able to hold a steady job meant that Eggsy had to be doing better. (Better, of course, did not mean fully healed, and they all knew that. But they also knew it was important to recognize progress and steps forward.) JB, perhaps, was the only one discontented with the situation, because it meant that he was alone for a few hours each day, and he was a clingy, needy, spoiled dog.

Overall, things seemed to be looking up.

 

 

 

Harry’s next mission came a week later. It was quite minor, just two days long, and involved little more than being there as a backup agent as two of the other knights foiled an assassination attempt of the Prime Minister. (Arthur didn’t usually go on missions, but Harry was young for Arthur, and during his run as Galahad he had been the best agent Kingsman had ever had. It seemed a waste to reduce his skills to just office work and planning just because he’d been promoted.)

He was anxious the entire time, despite the promises he and Eggsy had made to each other before he’d left; the same promises they always made, the same promises they would always keep. _I promise I’ll be safe. I promise I’ll come home. I promise I’ll be okay_. He’d never been away from Eggsy for more than just a day since Eggsy had moved in with him, and even then, if the boy had spent the night away, he’d always have nightmares.

He wasn’t surprised, then, when the nightmares came back. But they were manageable, and something he could make himself forget enough to get back to sleep afterwards.

He asked Roxy to look after JB, the day he got back, and took Eggsy to the shore.

“I’ve always loved the sea,” Eggsy said quietly, as they stepped out of the cab. Harry had driven, and they were now parked just across the street from the small, private boardwalk. The smell of sea salt was in the air.

“It’s not exactly very public,” Harry admitted. “I know the purpose of this was – how did I put it? To let everyone know that I’m yours.”

“Ah, fuck that,” Eggsy murmured. He stepped around to Harry’s side of the car, reaching forward and tentatively clasping Harry’s hand in his. He leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to Harry’s lips; his eyelashes fluttered, tickling Harry’s skin. “Spendin’ time with you is better than any of that.”

Harry hummed. “This stretch of beach belonged to my parents,” he said, as they crossed the street and boardwalk and stepped onto the sand. It had been a cool, cloudy day, and when they slipped off their shoes the sand, too, was cool against his feet. “That was their house – well, it my childhood home, too – back there that we parked in front of. I used to play here on the beach when I was young. I wanted to surf,” he said, with a small smile at the look of surprise on Eggsy’s face. “But the waves were never quite big enough here.”

“Swimmin’ was always better anyway,” Eggsy said, and he sounded nostalgic. “My dad used to take us to the beach every summer. My dad Lee, I mean, not Dean. My mum never learned how to swim when she was a kid, so my dad would teach us both. I almost got sucked away, once,” he said with a laugh. “Riptide. Mum never let me swim again after that.” The laugh faded. “Well, that’s what she told me anyway, after, the few times she’d speak of him. I don’t remember much personally. I was too young, I suppose. Don’t know if it ever really happened or not.”

“It happened,” Harry murmured. The boy glanced at him, eyes bright in the fire of the setting sun. “Lee told me about it,” he said. “He talked about you, even though strictly speaking he wasn’t supposed to.”

They were silent for a few moments. They’d reached the edge of the water by now; here, the ocean was calm, and Eggy stepped forward until the water lapped at his ankles, until the white foam tickled his ankles. Harry stood back, listening to the sounds of the waves, remembering the sound of the ventilator in the hospital when Eggsy had lay dying.

But his breath had been constant. It had always come back, just like the tide.

“Let’s swim,” Eggsy said suddenly, and for a moment, he seemed completely carefree. Bright and innocent, untouched by all of the cruelty in the world, the weight of all he’d gone through lifted from his shoulders like it had been just a few years ago.

“Whatever you want,” Harry said, and he couldn’t help what must have been a foolishly wide grin as the boy laughed and took his hand, pulling him forward into the tinfoil waves.

It didn’t matter that neither of them was wearing proper swim trunks (though Harry was glad he’d had the sensibility to wear something other than a bespoke suit). The water, heated by months of summer sun, was still warm even as the air cooled around them. The sun’s red rays kissed the ocean’s surface, turning it to fire and reflecting off its facets into Eggsy’s eyes until they became emeralds; green and bright and glowing against the ashes and embers of a wrecked sunset. Harry watched as the boy’s skin glittered with thousands of water droplets, as sea-soaked hair, knitted with light and left longer now instead of short as Ross had always wanted it, hung down into his face and sent rivulets of water down his cheeks. He saw the way the boy’s shirt clung to his body above the waves, hugging the curves of his muscles and dipping in between his ribs, accentuating every line of his perfection, scars and all.

He saw Eggsy watching him too; his gaze lingered a little longer than it usually did, more than once slipping down to glance at his lips or stray cheekily over the rest of his body.

Harry looked good; he knew he did. Being fit was a bit of a prerequisite to even being chosen as a Kingsman candidate, and being even more fit was a bit of a byproduct of training and being selected and becoming a field agent. But Eggsy’s eyes on him, roaming and almost hungry with the wild way the ocean often set people loose, made him feel exposed, undressed by Eggsy’s gaze alone, as if Eggsy were peeling his clothes off of him one layer at a time until he stood naked before him. Eggsy was an embodiment of the chaos of constellations, stretched out and scattered in the timeless, vast infinity above them, and Harry was the world’s first astronaut, reaching out to walk among his stars, humbled by their grace, struck wordless by their majesty.

The sun was dipping below the horizon, turning the sky a brilliant, blazing orange with brushstrokes of pink and red and yellow and purple, wispy cotton balls of white drifting above them. Eggsy was dipped in fire as he swam; a god, an angel. As the sun set and red faded to purple faded to a deep, endless blue-black, Eggsy was liquid silver in the waves.

Eggsy kissed him again, right before they left the ocean’s warm embrace to head back to the beach house, and he nudged Harry’s mouth open with his tongue, pressed their bodies together, slung his arms around Harry’s neck. Eggsy kissed him like he was oxygen, and it was exhilarating. Harry felt like he was drunk on happiness.

 _I love you_ , Eggsy tapped, when he broke the kiss and his hands slid down to Harry’s waist. His fingertips were light against Harry’s skin, his touch hot in the night air, cold now that the sun had set. _I love you I love you I love you._

His touch was constant, as he tucked himself under Harry’s arm when they walked back to the house. Tapping _I love you I love you I love you_ over and over again on Harry’s body, as if he couldn’t say it enough, and Harry would hum and say it back, and Eggsy would kiss him, and Harry would taste the salt of the ocean on his lips.

Harry felt like it was the most glorious thing in the world, to be next to the boy he loved. He thought love was magical.

The morning brought lazy contentment, and the day, mostly spent lounging on the beach, brought sleepy satisfaction. There were a few other couples, a few other families, several hundred meters away along the sand, but Harry’s parents had never sold the small private stretch of the beach Harry had grown up on, and they had passed away over ten years ago, and it now belonged to Harry, and was empty except for them. They walked along the boardwalk a bit, hand in hand, grabbing a bite to eat here and there. Almost always, a part of them was touching.

“Do you come here a lot?” Eggsy asked quietly, in mid-afternoon when the lazy sun hung hidden behind light clouds. It had been bright and hot earlier, and Harry could see where the boy’s cheeks had been touched by the heat.

“No,” Harry murmured. They were on the sand now, and Eggsy was curled up against him; Harry could feel the rasping purr of the boy’s voice in his chest. “I actually don’t think I’ve been back here in…oh, over ten years now, at least.”

Eggsy looked up at him, a little awkwardly because of the angle, but perfect nevertheless. Perfect, always perfect. “Why’s that?”

“Never had anyone I wanted to share it with before you,” Harry said, quietly, truthfully. “And especially not anyone who I thought was worth driving all the way up here for only two days. But I missed the ocean here even if I wasn’t particularly close with my parents in later years, once they figured out I wasn’t actually into women and didn’t give two shits about being pretentious and elitist.”

“You told me once that bein’ a gentleman had nothin’ to do with one’s accent,” Eggsy said quietly, almost nostalgically, after a pause.

“And I stand by that,” Harry said mildly. He paused. “Another reason I wanted to bring you here, in addition to genuinely liking the ocean, is that I think the ocean heals, a bit. There’s something I find calming about it, when the weather is good and the waves aren’t too high. I’d hoped it would help both of us.” Another pause, and a soft chuckle. “The ‘fuck you, I’m gay’ was an afterthought.”

Eggsy laughed; bright, beautiful.

They headed back to London that evening. Back to civilization, back to the everyday. The short trip, simple as it had been, seemed like a reverie, like a bit out of a dream. Harry remembered Eggsy, skin glittering with the reflection of a thousand suns, remembered that he’d thought he’d looked like an angel.

The boy slept now, in the car on the way back to London after dinner at an oceanside diner, on the way back to their home. ( _Their_ home. It was such an exciting thought.) Harry glanced at him once in a while as he drove; an old love song was playing softly on the radio. Eggsy had fallen asleep sometime at the beginning of the song, and his lips were lightly parted now, a soft dusting of pink on his cheeks, his eyelashes fluttering gently. He looked relaxed, almost content, even as he slept, a strand of ocean-damp hair peeking out from behind his ear.

Harry woke him gently when they arrived back home; he jerked a little bit, eyes wide and alert, and then they found Harry and he relaxed.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, with a bit of a sheepish grin. “I was gonna offer to drive a bit.”

“It’s probably best you didn’t, considering how tired you are,” Harry murmured. “Come on; let’s get you to a proper bed.”

“Mm. Yeah, that sounds wonderful.”

JB greeted them at the door, his entire butt wiggling to make up for the lack of wagging range of his curled tail. Roxy had texted Harry that he’d already been fed for the night, so Harry took him on a brief walk outside before returning back indoors and heading upstairs to the bedroom, where Eggsy was already settled in.

“Hey,” Eggsy murmured, as Harry closed the door to the bedroom behind himself and the pug, who jumped up onto the bed from the stool placed beside it. “Did he walk well today?”

“He was a little excited, so he pulled a little more than normal,” Harry said with a small smile, giving the pug’s ears an affectionate scratch and climbing under the covers beside Eggsy. “But I suppose that’s to be expected after not seeing either of us for more than a day.” He yawned and reached over to turn off the light on his side of the bed. “Well, I’m going to bed now, if that’s alright with you.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said. He reached over and turned off his light as well; the room was completely dark, save for a small sliver of moonlight that made it in through a crack in the curtains. “Goodnight, Harry.”

“Goodnight, Eggsy.”

 

 

 

He hadn’t been in bed for long before he was woken again.

“Harry?”

The boy’s voice jolted Harry out of his almost-sleep, and his eyes blinked open into the darkness. The faint green glow of the clock told him it was half past midnight; he’d climbed into bed about twenty minutes ago.

His voice was a bit groggy when he answered. “Yes?”

“Sorry that I woke you,” Eggsy whispered.

Harry hummed. “No, it’s alright. I wasn’t quite asleep yet.”

“Oh. Okay.”

A moment later, Harry felt the bed shift under him, and he felt the soft puffs of Eggsy’s breath against his neck, cool and even, making his skin tingle. His heart thumped once, twice, in its cage, as it registered that Eggsy had turned to face him instead of sleeping ramrod straight on his back as he had done before every night since he’d come back. Instead of sleeping like a soldier, like a weapon laid temporarily to rest.

Eggsy was silent for a long moment, and his voice was very quiet when he spoke. “I’m glad I came home with you.”

Warmth blossomed beneath Harry’s collarbone; he tilted his head to face Eggsy, and the boy’s green eyes shone bright in the darkness. He met Harry’s smile with a slight curve of his lips and reached up hesitantly to touch Harry’s cheek.

“I’m glad too,” Harry said softly, covering the boy’s hand in his own and pressing his cheek against the boy’s palm. It was warm and calloused like Harry’s but didn’t smell like gunpowder the way Harry’s always seemed to.

Harry’s hands always smelled like fire and violence, despite his best efforts.

Eggsy’s breath hitched in his throat at Harry’s touch. He shifted closer, enough so that his body was pressed against Harry’s side, and Harry could feel him trembling.

“Shh,” Harry murmured, despite the sudden pounding of his own heart, shifting around to face the boy, trying to ignore the sudden shaking of his own hands. He brushed Eggsy’s hair back from his forehead, letting his touch linger against the pale temple, letting it drift down to the sharp line of the boy’s jaw and the smooth expanse of his neck. Eggsy swallowed, and Harry felt it against his fingertips.

It was almost painful, how much Harry loved him. Like a dull ache in his chest, right around his heart, that spread a hot, burning heat through him. Harry willed it to surround Eggsy in its warmth, to hold him tight even if Harry couldn’t, to make Eggsy feel safe in a world where Harry knew he still didn’t.

“You knew I’d come, didn’t you?” Eggsy asked quietly after a few moments.

“Hmm?” Eggsy’s voice had pulled Harry from sleep again, but he couldn’t find it in himself to be irritated.

“You knew I’d come. You kept my suit.” It wasn’t a question.

Harry’s breath caught in his throat; he hadn’t been expecting to be psychoanalyzed, and the rest of what Eggsy meant was clear enough. _You kept my suit here, in your home, in your closet, instead of taking it back to Kingsman._ “Ah,” he said. “Yes, well I…I wasn’t absolutely sure, but I certainly hoped you would. I kept it in the event that you did, to return it to you if you wanted it. It’s yours, after all.” His voice was low and slightly gravelly; quiet. An uttered confession. His thumb stroked along the boy’s jaw, feeling the slight stubble there; he hadn’t shaved that morning.

Eggsy hummed softly, something almost like a smile tugging at the straight line of his mouth. He was trembling a little less now against Harry’s body. “And the extra toothbrush? The fact that your clothes only take up half of the space in the drawers? The fact that your shoe rack was far too big to be socially acceptable for a middle-aged man living alone? It’s been a while, Harry, but I remember it all. You had it all set up before you knew I would come home with you.”

A faint blush touched the curves of Harry’s cheeks. “I hoped a lot.”

“Mm. Yeah, I can see that.” The smile widened, but he sounded slightly breathless and Harry could hear a touch of anxiety in the boy’s voice, feel it in the slight tremble of his fingers against Harry’s cheek, and the boy shifted closer to him.

“Can I…can I kiss you?” Eggsy whispered.

Surprise flitted briefly across Harry’s mind, and then another wave of the fondness that came upon him so often now. He huffed a laugh. “Oh, Eggsy. Yes, darling, of course.”

Eggsy hesitated, and then leaned up and pressed his lips to Harry’s. It was brief, chaste, almost shy as if they had never kissed before, but Eggsy’s touch seemed to linger nevertheless; the ghost of a kiss that stayed pressed against Harry’s mouth for many moments after Eggsy had withdrawn. His lips were soft and sweet, his breath cool and puffing against Harry’s chin when he withdrew, and there was a faint tremor in his fingertips.

And that was it. But Eggsy curled into Harry’s body after that, his head nestling against Harry’s shoulder, his hands resting against Harry’s chest; a barrier between them still, but a smaller, thinner one than there had been in the past year. Harry’s arm slipped down to rest over the boy’s waist; tentatively, in a question, and even when he began stroking gently, his thumbs rubbing circles into Eggsy’s back, Eggsy didn’t protest.

The urge to touch was almost overwhelming. Eggsy had always been beautiful, lean, and muscular, and that hadn’t changed despite what he had gone through and the new scars he wore. Harry let his hands stray slightly, pausing every so often to read the emotion in the lines of the boy’s body, in the tension in his muscles and the evenness of his breathing, and the boy gave no sign of discomfort. His muscles stayed loose, his eyes still gently closed, his breaths deep and steady and relaxed.

Harry could feel Eggsy’s bones pressing up against his palm; the boy had never had much fat on his body, but he was actively thin now, shoulder blades jutting out from hunched shoulders, spine poking out from the center line of his upper back, and his waist, which had already been trim before, sinking down in a gentle curve between the hard ridges of his ribs and hips. Eggsy was motionless but relaxed under Harry’s touch; he skimmed his fingers over the boy’s arm, feeling the curves of hard muscle there, and ran them over the lean muscle of his chest and down to the hollow of his belly.

Eggsy shrank away slightly at that, his body stiffening; he had been shot there, and tortured in ways that Harry could only guess – some things, still, Eggsy hadn’t told him, and maybe never would. Harry’s hands paused, and the cotton of Eggsy’s shirt was still caught under the slight pressure of Harry’s fingers, wrinkling white over his skin. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry said softly, withdrawing slightly, but Eggsy let out a soft whine and grasped his hand to it back against his body.

“No,” he whispered. “It’s alright. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Harry murmured. “If you don’t want –”

“No,” Eggsy said, a little more forcefully. “Just – reflexes. I’m fine, I promise.”

So Harry continued, moving his fingers over the boy’s body, pressing in a little deeper where he found a knot and rubbing it away. There was a slight softness along the boy’s flanks where muscle thinned, and he seemed to be more sensitive to Harry’s touch there; he shivered under Harry’s hands. Harry hummed softly as the movement brought the boy’s body slightly closer to him, his hands roaming to the flat planes of muscle on the boy’s chest and down to where they blended into the muscles of his belly.

The boy’s body was somehow softer, more pliable than Harry had imagined despite the thick muscle that lay beneath pale skin. Eggsy let out a soft sound as Harry’s thumb pressed into a stubborn knot in his shoulder; partly pain, partly relief, and muddled with sleep. Harry felt his lips twitch in amusement, felt the tension release under his hands, felt Eggsy shift a little closer.

Their legs didn’t quite tangle together, and they weren’t quite pressed flush against each other, but Eggsy slept closer than he had ever done before, and for Harry, for tonight, that was enough.

 

 

 

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More time, more healing, some first times, and some second chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm never really sure what the line is between mature and explicit tbh. This chapter is probably more on the explicit side.

EGGSY

A few more weeks passed in peace, and August came. Things settled down, and they both got a little better. Eggsy even managed to visit his family on his own and ended up staying the entire afternoon. After that, visiting them became at least a monthly event, and he realized that perhaps visiting them wasn’t so bad. Perhaps it would, with time, remind him of the fact that they were safe because of him more than it would remind him of the things he had done to keep them that way. One weekend, several knights even came over for dinner with him and Harry, and he found himself smiling and laughing with Merlin, who a year ago he hadn’t even been able to look in the eye out of guilt.

The guilt was still there; of course it was. And aside from loving Harry, despite having helped to bring down Ross, there still was nothing Eggsy wanted more than to be able to fix what he had done, as impossible as it was to bring people back from the dead. But it was easier now to believe that the knights – Merlin included – had forgiven him, and loved him just as they loved Harry.

Though maybe that was _because_ they loved Harry, Eggsy thought with a bit of an amused smile.

But it was the little things, too. The everyday things. Eggsy slept on his side now, often curled into Harry’s chest. He felt comfortable like that now, and sometimes he’d even let himself snuggle closer with Harry, draping an arm over the other man’s chest, letting his knee drift in between Harry’s legs.

Every time that he came closer, shifted nearer to Harry, Harry would let out a quiet hum, and if Eggsy looked up he’d see a soft smile drift across Harry’s face.

Sometimes, Eggsy would kiss him before they fell asleep. Sometimes, he’d even slip in a little tongue, let his hands roam a little bit, and Harry would respond enthusiastically, but it always ended before it got too far. He always wondered if Harry had sensed that he was nervous and pulled back first, or if he himself had been the one to end it.

But there was a tension between them, Eggsy could feel it. He had no doubt that Harry felt it too. He felt it like electricity in the air before a thunderstorm, sparking at his skin when Harry’s fingertips brushed against him, sending chills up his spine when Harry held his gaze for a split-second longer than usual, and it was all the more potent now that he was beginning to realize that it was over, that Ross was gone, that he could actually have a future with the man he loved.

He could almost taste it sometimes, the amount of _want_ that lingered between them.

But Harry didn’t say a word, didn’t move an inch towards him. Not in that way, not yet, even though Eggsy knew he wanted to. Eggsy knew Harry was waiting for him to be ready, waiting for him to get over his trauma enough that he could tolerate anything even resembling affection for more than a few moments. Waiting for Eggsy to realize that it was okay to love someone because he wouldn’t be punished and people wouldn’t be hurt for it, for Eggsy to tell him it was okay to go further. So light touches, gentle words, the occasional soft kiss, and that was it.

And Eggsy felt like it was killing him.

Because he was ready. He felt like he’d been ready _ages_ ago, even though he knew in reality it was just a month or two ago that he’d realized it. That he’d realized he’d be alright with Harry, that it was okay to love him. That it was alright to touch and be touched. That love didn’t have to be a weakness, and he didn’t have to hide it or run away from it.

So one day, he thought, _oh, fuck it_ , and made up his mind that when Harry came home, Eggsy would tell him, in perhaps slightly different terms, that he would very much like for Harry to fuck him.

 _I love you_ , he tapped later that night, sitting in the loveseat and absentmindedly reading a book as Harry walked into the bedroom after work. He always came to see Eggsy first thing after he got home from HQ, Eggsy thought fondly, and a rush of affection spread warmth through his chest.

If Harry was surprised at the uncharacteristic forwardness, he didn’t show it. “I love you too,” he said quietly. Casually, as if it were a normal exchange, as if he were afraid to make it anything more. Because he was scared, Eggsy realized, scared that his affection might chase Eggsy away, even after so long.

Eggsy knew it wouldn’t. It couldn’t. He didn’t think anything could drive him from Harry’s side now.

“C’mere,” Eggsy said, setting down his book. Harry crossed the room to him, all sharp angles and long legs and kind brown eyes, and did not question him.

“ _Here_ ,” Eggsy said, impatient despite – or perhaps because of – nerves, and reached up to fist his hands in the neatly pressed lapels of Harry’s suit and pulled him down for a kiss. He heard Harry’s soft intake of breath, the slight huff of laughter and the uncertainty that lay hidden deep in the sound despite the way that Harry couldn’t quite stop his hands from moving up to cup Eggsy’s face. _Is this okay_ , it meant.

 _Yes_ , Eggsy wanted to say. He broke the kiss and pulled back; his gaze darted up to Harry’s face, seeing something guarded in the warm brown pools of his eyes. He licked his lips, letting his tongue run out and wet his mouth, saw the quick, almost imperceptible downwards shift of Harry’s gaze.

“I want you, Harry,” he dared say. His meaning was unmistakable. He saw Harry’s lips part, saw the dilation of his pupils.

“Are you sure?” Harry’s voice was soft, gentle. Eggsy knew he wouldn’t rush him.

Eggsy leaned forward, pulling him down again just enough so that his teeth could graze Harry’s jaw, hands resting on Harry’s body just enough so that he could feel the full-bodied shiver that ran through him. He knew that Harry had just gotten back from HQ, knew that he hadn’t had a chance to take off the hard exterior he wore as a spy, but he didn’t care. “I want to try. I want to see you,” he whispered.

Harry barely missed a beat. “In that case, shall I?” he murmured, gesturing to his clothes. He was still so composed, the bastard, even though Eggsy knew he would be shaking with just a few well-placed touches.

Eggsy stood, bringing Harry up with him and crowding him back until the backs of Harry’s thighs hit the mattress. Harry lowered himself onto the bed, his hands at his sides, his eyes fixed on Eggsy’s face. Eggsy could see the pulse in his neck.

“No,” Eggsy said. “Let me.”

 

 

He started with Harry’s jacket, running his hands lightly over the broad lapels. The pinstripe wool was soft under his palms, framing Harry’s body perfectly in the way it rested over broad shoulders, tapered at trim waist. He could just feel the contours of Harry’s body through the material, the way the muscles in his shoulders swelled out from his pectorals, the way skin and muscle clung to his ribs. He found the top button of Harry’s coat just below the bottoms of the overlapping lapels and unfastened it, letting the coat fall open and sliding it from Harry’s shoulders. He felt the catch of it on the wristwatch on Harry’s left hand, heard the whispering of the inner silk lining against the cotton of the shirt. The darker silk embroidering of Harry’s initials on the lining of his pocket briefly caught the light of the lamp, gleaming bright in the otherwise dimness of the room.

Harry’s glasses were next. Eggsy slipped them off of his face, folded them in and placed them on the nightstand. The silky fabric of Harry’s tie rustled as Eggsy untied it and slipped it out of its knot, pulling it slowly away from Harry’s neck, releasing his collar. Leather holsters hung around Harry’s arms, crossing back between his shoulder blades and curving forward over his pectorals; Eggsy ran his fingers over the supple material, still sturdy but softened and worn with years of use. He unfastened the clasps and drew out the guns, taking his time to place them on Harry’s nightstand next to the glasses, muzzles pointed towards the wall, before returning to Harry.

He nudged Harry’s knees apart with his thigh then, slotting his leg between Harry’s to crowd into his space. He saw Harry’s lips part, heard him swallow, felt the heat of his flushed skin as he brushed a thumb against Harry’s cheek, and his own heartbeat quickened.

The holsters slipped off easily, pooling onto the bed behind him. Eggsy ran his fingers along the top ridge of Harry’s collar, pressed and ironed so there were no wrinkles in the fabric. He could see the contours of Harry’s body so much better now under just a single thin layer of fabric, ran his eyes over the way the cloth dipped in under his pectorals and drew in around his wrists and waist. He undid the first button, loosening Harry’s collar, and then moved onto the second. Eggsy felt like he was deconstructing the intricate puzzle Harry had put together over himself, taking apart his disguise and revealing the man underneath, and felt a faint thrill run up his spine at the thought. Here was Harry, baring himself to him, letting Eggsy chip away at his exterior and melting under his hands for the want of it.

Harry let out a shaky exhale. Eggsy slipped his hand between the two sides of the shirt, pressing his thumb briefly into the hollow at the base of Harry’s neck before sweeping it to his right, delineating Harry’s left collarbone, pushing just deep enough into the soft skin just above the bone that he could feel the tendons of Harry’s neck roll under his thumb. He spread his fingers out, feeling the roughness of the small patch of hair on Harry’s chest and letting the warmth of Harry’s body seep through his palm, radiating up his arm into his own body. He passed his fingers over Harry’s nipple, hearing the subsequent catch in his breath, and stroked down to the softness of Harry’s flanks. He let his hands rest on Harry’s body, memorizing its contours, searing the map of it onto his brain. He vowed to know it forever and anywhere, in darkness and in brilliant light, until the end of their days and until their minds ceased to exist. This was a man Eggsy loved more than anything in the universe, the only man in the world who knew how Eggsy broke and fell apart and the only man Eggsy trusted to be able to put him back together.

Eggsy kissed him. He couldn’t resist it, the touch of honey-sweet lips against his own, the taste of aged scotch on his tongue. He pressed his hands to Harry’s body and kissed him, long and sweet and deep, and with it tried to tell Harry how much he loved him.

The rest of Harry’s buttons came next, undone by deft fingers and revealing tanned skin beneath. Eggsy’s fingers trembled as he slipped his hands underneath the cotton, pressing his palms flat against Harry’s body, feeling the hard planes of muscle and the way they blended into bone. He could feel Harry shaking, could feel him leaning into his touch and allowed a small smile to play at the corners of his lips at the way Harry’s eyes drifted shut; he indulged him for another few moments, running his hands over Harry’s body, fingers skimming over his ribs and down his sides. He edged them under the top hem of Harry’s trousers, just enough to feel the veins webbing up from his groin over his lower belly, just enough to feel the catch of his nails in the hair that thickened there.

And then he withdrew. Not yet, he thought. He wanted to take it slow. He wanted to know Harry as fully and completely as he could before anything else. Harry let out a soft noise of protest as he moved away, almost a whine, but stayed still. Eggsy knelt, slipping the fuzzy red slippers that Harry sometimes put on at the door if it was cold or drafty off of Harry’s feet one by one and lining them up neatly at the foot of the bed, toe pointed in. The socks were a cotton blend and deep blue, almost black; Eggsy felt a smile pull at his lips. He should have known that Harry’s clothes always matched, down to his socks and underwear.

He stripped off the socks now, rolling the tops of them down around Harry’s ankles and then sliding them over the heels of his feet, one at a time. He pulled them off, laying them flat over the slippers at the foot of the bed, cradling Harry’s right foot in his hands and running his fingertips, his lips, over the intricate webbings of tendon and vein of his ankle. He did the same with the other leg, tracing the long tendon that rested on the outside bone of Harry’s ankle up to where it blended into the muscles of his lower leg. Harry’s calves were toned, curving out smoothly along the back and ramrod straight in front, and Eggsy kissed them, feeling the subtle shifts of thin, lean muscle and hard lines of tendon and sinew where they gave way to the more powerful muscles of Harry’s thighs.

He continued up Harry’s thighs then, slipping his hands underneath to press into the firmness of his arse and hamstrings, squeezing gently with his fingers into the hard flex of Harry’s quads. He let his fingertips stray towards Harry’s groin, brushing over his hardening length, teasing at the sensitive skin of Harry’s inner thigh through the wool of his trousers. Harry took a shuddering breath, a shiver running through his body.

“Cold?” Eggsy asked quietly.

Harry huffed a laugh. “No. Just you,” he whispered.

A small smile played at the corners of Eggsy’s mouth. “Overstimulated already, bruv? Thought Kingsman’s best honeypot agent would’ve been able to handle a little bit of foreplay no problem.”

Harry laughed again. “That’s why I said it’s just you.”

“Hm. I kinda like that.” Eggsy unfastened the buttons and zip of Harry’s trousers next, seeing Harry’s breath quicken in the rise and fall of his chest, seeing the growing bulge between the other man’s legs and the way his knees edged apart. Harry’s skin was hot where his knuckles brushed against his lower belly, and when Eggsy leaned in to press a kiss under Harry’s jaw he could feel the pulsing of his carotid under his lips.

 _I love you_ , he wanted to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to. There was something about those three words that was hard for him to say out loud sometimes, as much as he meant it. But there was no need; Harry could read it in the way he kissed him, in the way his gentle touches brought Harry to his feet just long enough for Eggsy to slip the trousers down around his knees. He pulled them off the rest of the way, taking the trousers and jackets both and folded them neatly, taking the time to place them in the dry-cleaning pile in Harry’s closet. Harry had taught him how to be a gentleman, after all, and it wouldn’t do to forget his lessons so quickly.

Harry was almost bare to him now; Eggsy slipped his shirt off of him, revealing lean, toned arms and an equally lean torso, and put the cotton shirt in the laundry before returning to Harry. He edged his fingers under the elastic band of Harry’s underwear – grey, to match the pinstripes of his suit – and nudged it downwards around the sharp bones of Harry’s hips. Harry let him, shifting his weight to make it easier for him, and Eggsy kissed Harry’s chest, his belly, as he pushed his underwear down around Harry’s knees and permitted the other man to kick them the rest of the way off.

Harry was thick, long, and uncut, already hard and weeping from the tip. Eggsy kissed the sensitive skin on the inside edge of Harry’s hip, inhaling his musky scent and only indulging himself with the occasional press of his hand against his own hardening length. There was a thick tendon running down from the top ridge of Harry’s hipbones and he pressed into the softer flesh until he could feel it under his fingertips; Harry shuddered, let out a sigh as Eggsy leaned in and pressed a teasingly chaste kiss to the inside of his thigh.

“And you?” Harry rasped, softly enough that the silence did not shatter.

“Would you like to undress me?” Eggsy asked quietly.

Harry swallowed, and Eggsy heard the hitch in his breathing. “I would,” he whispered.

Eggsy stood back and let his hands fall to his sides. Harry swallowed again, standing and reaching out hesitantly. Eggsy felt the brush of his hands against the hollow of his neck as Harry took the zipper of his jacket and slid it slowly downwards. The soft clicks of the separating teeth seemed too loud for the room, Harry’s gaze on him piercing and overwhelming, and Eggsy was grateful for when the fastening finally came undone. Harry grasped the sides of the jacket and slid them almost reverently over Eggsy’s shoulders, his thumbs dragging lightly against Eggsy’s body as he did so, and the coat slipped with a soft thump to the floor.

The shirt came next; simple cotton. It proved slightly more challenging to remove than Harry’s due to its lack of buttons, but they managed, and soon Harry’s breath misted cool over Eggsy’s bare skin. He didn’t feel exposed as he’d thought he might; he felt comfortable, at ease, heart fluttering with anticipation but any anxiety quelled by the love he felt for Harry.

“He branded you,” Harry whispered, and Eggsy felt his fingers over the scars on his chest. They drifted lower to where the skin was pale and puckered; one spot between his seventh and eighth ribs on his left side, one spot two inches to the right and three inches higher than his navel. A long line along his left side. Another long line along the midline of his belly. Scars from two red-hot bullets, shot from the guns of Ross’s assassins, marking the spots under where Eggsy had been torn up inside. Scars from where surgeons had to cut him open just to be able to put him back together.

Eggsy didn’t speak. He saw the darkening in Harry’s eyes, the flush of anger in his cheeks, and shook his head. _Not now. Please._

Harry stopped. His eyes flickered to Eggsy’s face, reading the emotion there, and he let it drop.

He moved onto Eggsy’s jeans instead, undoing the clasp of the belt and sliding it out smoothly. The metal clinked gently as the belt slipped from Harry’s hands to the floor; Eggsy saw his fingers hover over the horizontal scars stacked in a neat line going up the left side of his belly, but when Eggsy had told Harry of them he’d asked him not to speak of them again, so Harry didn’t. He knelt and kissed them instead, his lips soft and his breath cool, and the nerve endings had been damaged by the red-hot knife that had cut into him but the skin around the scars tingled with sensation, and Eggsy shivered. Goosebumps roughened the skin of his arms.

Harry undid the button and zip of Eggsy’s jeans next, slipping his hands under the hem and pushing them down past Eggsy’s hips. Eggsy felt Harry’s hands on the swell of his arse, felt the increase in his heartrate as Harry leaned in and nosed at his length through his underwear, cradling his hips, holding him steady.

Eggsy’s legs were tightly muscled and almost unmarked, save for a single thin scar on the curve of his left thigh were a bullet had grazed him on a mission. Harry kissed that too, his tongue darting out and running along the numb, nerveless line, as he pushed Eggsy’s jeans down around his ankles. Eggsy let out a few shuddering breaths as he did so and Harry hummed softly, kissing the pale skin of his thighs, nosing at his hips, his touch gentle and soothing until Eggsy relaxed again.

Harry kept his attention on Eggsy’s cock then, mouthing at it through the cloth, hands running teasingly up and down Eggsy’s thighs before they found their way up to the small of his back where they rested warm and firm above the curve of his arse, arms wrapped around the top ridge of his hips. Eggsy managed to kick off his socks and stepped out of his jeans, leaving them in a puddle on the ground. His hands found Harry’s hair and he ran his fingers through it, tugging gently, relishing in the soft moan that Harry gave.

Harry’s mouth was exquisite. Even with the layer of cloth between it and Eggsy’s cock, Eggsy felt as if Harry had somehow managed to take his entire length into his velvet heat. His tongue was teasing, his lashes fluttering gently and the vibrations of his lips as he sucked and moaned sending waves of pleasure shooting up to Eggsy’s brain. He kissed Eggsy’s cock, mouth open wide to suck at the outline of his balls and breath hot on Eggsy’s skin when he kissed at his lower belly. It was almost too much, the sight of Harry on his knees, eyes closed with bliss, both hands pleasuring Eggsy’s body even as his own erection hung neglected between his legs.

“Wait,” Eggsy murmured, tugging a little more forcefully at the silk of Harry’s hair until he pulled back.

“I love you,” Harry mumbled, and he looked almost dazed. His lips were red and shiny with spit.

Eggsy’s mouth twitched in a small smile. “You first,” he said, and pushed Harry back until he was sitting on the bed again. He had been waiting to fuck Harry for over four years, and he didn’t want to rush it.

So he took the time to learn Harry’s body, its planes and angles and curves of muscle and tendon and bone. Harry’s hands were calloused, his long, elegant fingers slotting neatly between Eggsy’s. He traced the bluish veins, slightly greener than his own, as they wound their way down his arm and webbed over the fine bones of his wrist and tendons in the back of his hand. He stroked the palm, warm and soft between the ridges of callouses, relished in their soothing warmth. He took the time to learn the gentle touch of another human being again.

Harry’s lips parted with a soft breath as Eggsy took his hands and lifted them to his mouth, pressing his lips to each of the soft pads, letting his eyes drift shut when Harry couldn’t resist the urge to brush his hands against Eggsy’s cheek. He found himself leaning into the touch, his head tilting against his palm as Harry’s fingers traced the curve of his ear and drifted over the silk of his neck.

No words were said. There didn’t need to be; Eggsy could read everything in Harry’s touch, in the shift of the lines on his face.

 _My darling_ , Harry’s hand said, cupping Eggsy’s jaw as his thumb stroked along his cheek.

 _I love you_ , Eggsy answered as he tilted his chin to brush his lips against Harry’s right hand. He kissed down his palm until his lips found the pale underside of Harry’s wrist, purple and green veins showing through under delicate skin and tendons shifting smoothly with every slight movement of Harry’s fingers. The faint smell of Harry’s cologne lingered there, and when Eggsy’s tongue darted out he could taste it, bitter and sweet.

He followed the line of Harry’s forearm to his inner elbow, where hard bone jutting out on either side and surrounded the softer flesh of the joint in the middle. He heard Harry swallow as he kissed up his bicep, licking along the brachial artery that stood out in high definition against the hard, warm curve of muscle. He smelled a little muskier here, more like Harry and less like the gentleman costume he wore during the day. He reached Harry’s shoulder, feeling the flex of muscle and tendon under his lips as Harry brought his hand up to tangle his fingers in Eggsy’s hair, feeling the slide of skin under his palm as Harry shifted to bring his body closer, press against him tighter.

Eggsy drew back. Harry let him, though his pupils were wide and black and his cheeks flushed with the heat of Eggsy’s body so close to him. Eggsy brought Harry’s other hand to his lips, daring to take two fingers into his mouth, tongue pressing against the velvet pads, tasting, sucking, closing his eyes in bliss at the shuddered exhale that came from Harry’s lungs, at the way Harry’s hand drifted down to his length and pressed against it. He kissed up Harry’s left forearm the same way he’d done with the right, relishing in the silk texture of Harry’s skin under his lips and the way it lay over the soft ridges of blood vessels and corded layers of muscle. There was a scar that cut across Harry’s left bicep where his right was unmarked, and Eggsy lingered there, reaching up to touch the paled, roughened skin, wondering what the story was behind it.

“Mission, ‘09,” Harry said quietly. “Loosely related to what the United States was looking into with Al Qaeda. A small but potentially monumental oversight, and this was the price I paid.”

“Bullet,” Eggsy murmured. It wasn’t a question.

“Bullet,” Harry agreed. “As I was removing my suit; otherwise I would only have a bruise to show.”

Eggsy tsked and ran his fingers over it. “Careless.”

Harry hummed. Eggsy kissed the scar, noting how close it had been to the major artery in Harry’s arm, and did not think about where he might be now if it had been hit.

He kissed up to Harry’s shoulder instead, shifting closer so he was straddling Harry’s legs, so their chests brushed against each other, so that he could more easily reach around to Harry’s muscled back. He kissed the top of Harry’s shoulder at the juncture between shoulder and neck, at the thickest swell of Harry’s trapezius. His hands slipped around under Harry’s arms to rest against his back, feeling the swells and dips of muscle and the hard line that made up the crest of Harry’s shoulder blades. His fingertips skimmed over supple skin, pressing lightly into the ridges of Harry’s vertebrae at the center line of his back, slid his palms over the two large bundles of corded muscle fiber on either side of his spine. There was one scar over the broad expanse, a few inches to the right of his spine and just inside the plane of his right shoulder blade.

“The church. Kentucky,” Harry murmured as he felt Eggsy’s fingers linger there. “Some of them got to fight back a little.”

Eggsy’s gaze flickered upwards to Harry’s face, and then slid sideways to rest on the faint pink scar on the left side of his temple, next to his eye.

“Also the church,” Harry said quietly. “I believe Valentine wanted me dead, but fortunately for me, his aim left much to be desired.”

Eggsy just leaned forward to rest his head against Harry’s shoulder again, closed his eyes, and inhaled. Harry’s scent was strongest here where his nose was pressed into the base of his neck and he stayed there for a few more moments, feeling Harry’s hands drift up to his own back, feeling Harry pull him in closer, feeling him bury his nose into Eggsy’s hair.

Harry let out a shaky exhale, his body tightening, his fingertips catching on the hard, nerveless bundles of skin that scabbed over Eggsy’s back.

 _Ross_ , his hands whispered, and Eggsy could feel the anger in them again. But Harry didn’t speak of him. Eggsy had asked him to forget it, to stop blaming himself, and he would try.

“We’re just covered in scars, aren’t we?” Eggsy said, with a small smile.

“Guess so,” Harry murmured. He hummed and tilted his chin down to kiss him. “It doesn’t make you any less beautiful, darling.”

Eggsy let out a soft breath. He slid his hands up to the base of Harry’s skull, exploring the ridges and relishing in the way Harry shivered at his touch, his entire body trembling, taut like a spring, tense like a coiled cat. Harry’s eyes were fixed on him, burning and bright, but his eyelids drifted shut in bliss as Eggsy tangled his fingers into his hair and tugged gently at the roots.

Eggsy kissed him then, tilting his chin so his lips slotted neatly against Harry’s. He felt the other man’s mouth open in invitation and licked his way inside, slow and insistent, because he didn’t want to rush but he wanted to taste the man he loved, wanted to let their breaths mingle. Harry was sweet and hot, his mouth like velvet. Eggsy could taste scotch on his tongue and mint on his breath and kissed him deeper, his hands tightening in Harry’s hair and his hips rolling lightly against Harry’s. When he drew back, Harry’s lips were red and slick, his eyes glassed over.

_He’s so beautiful._

He reached up and traced Harry’s eyebrow with a finger; Harry’s eyes closed and Eggsy marveled at the way his lashes fluttered, long and thick and slightly curled. He brushed a thumb lightly over the delicate skin of Harry’s eyelids, pinkish like the light of dawn and threaded with blood vessels, the crease of his eyes running into the shallow crow’s feet that framed his face. He could feel Harry’s breath misting over his chin, cool and sweet, could hear him swallow. His thumbs caressed Harry’s cheekbones and he saw Harry’s eyes flutter open, revealing deep, clear eyes the color of sunlight through whiskey, the color of autumn itself.

The words came to his mouth unbidden now. “I love you,” Eggsy whispered, and Harry’s lips curved into a smile. Eggsy kissed him again, deep and slow, mouthing at him and shuddering at the heat of Harry’s hands on his body. He felt the callouses against the tender skin over his ribs, felt the warmth of his palms seeping into his shoulders, his sides, his chest, and wondered why he had ever denied himself this.

“Eggsy,” Harry murmured, and that was all he needed to say. Eggsy sighed into his mouth, slinging his arms around Harry’s neck and rocking against him, pressing their bodies flush against each other.

But he wasn’t done yet. He kissed down to the cut of Harry’s jaw and then to the smooth expanse of his neck as Harry tilted his head back; he dared to kiss a little harder, to let bared teeth nip, to mar the flawless silk. Harry shivered, his breath catching in his throat, and Eggsy pressed the flat of his tongue against the reddening mark, tasting him and feeling the thick tendons and the throb of his carotid where his blood rushed. He felt the bob of Harry’s Adam’s apple as he swallowed, felt the vibration of his vocal chords as he let out a shuddering, breathy moan when Eggsy ran his hands down Harry’s bare sides.

Eggsy put his palms against Harry’s shoulders and pushed; Harry lay back onto the bed, hands at his sides, legs spread. Exposed for him.

Eggsy leaned over him, tracing the wings of his collarbones as they tapered into broad shoulders, skimming his fingertips over the muscle that flexed in Harry’s pectorals and brushing at erect nipples. Harry’s body responded wonderfully to his touch, his hyper-sensitive skin prickling and his cheeks flushing. Eggsy bent down and kissed Harry’s chest, the light dusting of hair tickling his chin and the combined, heady scent of Harry and light touch of cologne filling Eggsy’s nose. His kisses were wet, sloppy, and light, more of a drag of lips and tongue against skin than an actual kiss, but he could feel Harry’s body arching up to meet him, feel the hard length of Harry’s erection pressed against the inside of his hip.

He closed his mouth over Harry’s left nipple and sucked, taking the other one between his thumb and forefinger and squeezing lightly. Harry gasped, his hips rolling against Eggsy’s and dragging their lengths together, and Eggsy could see tendons standing out in Harry’s hands and wrists as he gripped the sheets on the bed. Eggsy kept sucking, swirling his tongue around the hardened nub and lapping greedily at it. He squeezed Harry’s other nipple a little harder, just enough for it to sting, and let out a soft moan at the ensuing noise Harry made; not quite a cry, almost a whine.

He moved down Harry’s chest, hands skimming over heated skin, kissing down to his belly. Harry’s belly was flat and well-defined with muscle, only a thin layer of fat obscuring the lines of his abdominals below his navel. Eggsy felt the hard jut of his ribs before they gave way to softness below, felt the press of Harry’s belly against his lips and palms as he arched up into his touch.

Eggsy indulged him, dipping his tongue into Harry’s navel, sucking red marks into the pale skin on either side. He felt the flex of Harry’s body under him, the pulling of tendon and the tightening of muscle, and shivered as Harry’s hands raked through his hair. He felt the scrape of the small trail of hair against his chin and kissed down the softness around it, feeling the soft ridges of veins webbing up from Harry’s groin as fat and muscle thinned.

“I wanna taste you, Harry,” Eggsy murmured, his lips brushing the base of Harry’s cock. His hands were on Harry’s hips, thumbs smoothing over the hard bone; Harry was breathing hard and fast, and Eggsy could feel the light flexing of muscle on every breath. Heat radiated from Harry’s body and his skin seared Eggsy’s hands.

“Yes,” Harry gasped out, and Eggsy felt his hips cant, felt him push up into his touch. “Yes, darling.”

Eggsy hummed and licked up Harry’s length, flattening his tongue out, wrapping his lips around the head. Harry let out a soft gasp, his fingers tightening in Eggsy’s hair, knees spread wide. Eggsy pressed his tongue against his leaking slit and relished in the panted, broken whine that escaped Harry’s throat as he slid his mouth slowly down, enveloping Harry in the heat of his mouth. He swallowed around Harry’s cock, letting his throat work around the sensitive head.

“Fuck – Eggsy,” Harry moaned, and the sound of him already wrecked sent shivers up Eggsy’s spine, sent heat shooting down to his groin. His own cock jumped in his underwear and he slid a hand from Harry’s hip to grasp at it, unable to hold back a sound of pleasure at the friction his calloused hand provided. Harry echoed him, thrusting up gently into his mouth, his cheeks flushed.

Eggsy drew up again, keeping his lips closed and being careful not to let his teeth scrape, and tongued teasingly at the sensitive underside. Harry let out a breathless cry as Eggsy began moving, his head bobbing up and down on Harry’s cock, hollowing his cheeks and keeping his tongue pressed flat against the underside so it pressed against the sensitive bundle of nerves on the underside each time. Harry’s head was thrown back, his eyes half-lidded, carefully parted and styled hair a complete mess. His knees were spread, and Eggsy could see the muscle and tendon standing out on the inside of his thighs as he thrust up gently to meet him.

Eggsy hummed again, smoothing his palms over the silk inside of Harry’s thighs and then sliding his hands inwards towards his groin, cupping his balls and stroking up the base of his cock, slipping down and back into his crack. Harry whined, the muscles in his legs and stomach tensing, and he brought his knees up for better access. Eggsy obliged, shifting the angle of his hand to press two fingers lightly against Harry’s rim and taking Harry’s resulting involuntary thrust with ease. It had been a while since he'd had cock in his mouth, and his jaw was already beginning to ache.

“Would’ve thought it took more than this to get you undone,” Eggsy murmured with a small grin, pulling off Harry’s cock to suck at his balls instead.

“With anyone else, perhaps,” Harry answered, breathless and shaky. He sounded slightly dazed. Eggsy licked backwards along his crack, tonguing the rim of Harry’s hole. He felt Harry shiver above him, felt the shakiness of his exhales, and dipped his tongue inside.

Harry let out a soft cry as Eggsy penetrated him, his body tensing, clenching down. Eggsy lapped at him greedily; somehow, sometime, Harry had lifted his knees and brought them up to his chest, and Eggsy found his hands on the backs of Harry’s thighs, supporting him and keeping his hips tilted upwards. He felt Harry’s muscles clenching, heard the panting breaths, saw him reach down and take his length in his hand and thrust up into his grip.

Eggsy withdrew, kissing up along the inside of Harry’s left thigh and licking greedily at Harry’s length, leaking and throbbing. “I want you to fuck me, Harry,” he whispered.

“God, yes,” Harry gasped immediately. Eggsy felt a small thrill run through his body and kissed his hip, his belly, smoothing his palms over sweat-slicked skin. He pushed his underwear down around his ankles and stepped out, leaning over Harry’s body to let his now-bare length drag against Harry’s, shifting up so he was straddling Harry’s hips and sitting up to press his crack teasingly against Harry’s cock.

“Yes,” Harry gasped again. He propped himself up on his elbows, gesturing. “Do you want –”

Eggsy rolled over so he was on the bed beside him. “Kiss me first,” he breathed, and he felt his heart racing in his chest, pounding out a staccato against his ribs like a bird in a cage. Harry bent over him, nosing at his jaw, his eyelashes tickling Eggsy’s cheek. Eggsy’s breath hitched, a shudder running through him, and felt himself tilt his chin up to expose his neck to Harry’s teeth.

“I love you,” Harry said quietly, kissing along his jugular and sucking a spot under his jaw. Eggsy could feel the tremor in his lips, the want that throbbed through him, but he could feel the care Harry was taking to go slow, to wait until he was ready.

Eggsy arched his body up, hands reaching up to grasp at Harry’s chest, shoulders, head, pulling him closer as his legs came up to cradle Harry’s hips. He trusted Harry, trusted him enough to be willing to bare himself to him, to lose control and let Harry take him and feel him like he would let no one else.

He felt Harry’s hands on his sides, stroking down his flanks to the V at his groin. Harry’s hands were firm but gentle as they grasped his length, pulling slowly, the friction and heat sending a constant thrum of pleasure through Eggsy’s body. His lips parted, a soft sigh escaping them as Harry lavished kisses over his neck, chest, shoulders. He felt the gentle scrape of teeth, the sting of a soft bite, the burn as Harry branded him with his lips.

 _I love you_ , Eggsy tapped on Harry’s waist, his back, anywhere his fingers could reach, and he felt Harry respond to him, his hips shifting to grind against Eggsy’s thigh. He felt the slide of skin, the rasp of Harry’s fingers tugging gently through his hair, the sweet honey of his mouth and the pleasure it wrung from him.

“Fuck me,” Eggsy whispered, and Harry looked up at him, mouth red and wet and eyes glazed.

“You’re beautiful, Eggsy,” Harry said, and he sounded wrecked. Eggsy wasn’t sure if he’d heard what he’d said.

He felt a smile tugging at his lips, and he pulled Harry up to kiss him. “I want you to fuck me,” he said again into Harry’s mouth. “I’m ready. I trust you.”

Harry hummed, licking his way past Eggsy’s lips into his mouth, pressing his tongue against the roof of his mouth and tasting him, exploring him, mapping him out. “Alright,” he said finally. Eggsy felt him reach over to the nightstand, heard him fumbling around inside even as his mouth slipped down to Eggsy’s neck, sucking marks and nipping and soothing the sting with a sweep of his tongue. His breath was hot, his touch unceasing even as Eggsy heard him open the condom wrapper and roll it onto himself, even as Eggsy heard the click of the cap of the lube and the sound of Harry rubbing his hands together to warm it up.

“How do you want me?” Eggsy asked. His voice rasped in his throat.

“However you like,” Harry replied, his words muffled from where his lips were still pressed against Eggsy’s skin.

Eggsy shook his head. “This – this is for you, too,” he said. “I want to trust you completely. I want you to control me, to tell me what you want, and I’ll do it. Anythin’, Harry.”

Harry’s breath left him in a soft huff; the kisses stopped as he withdrew and looked up at him. “Are you sure?”

Eggsy met his eyes, held the beautiful brown gaze. “I’ve been sure,” he whispered. “Ever since I met you.”

Harry seemed stunned. Eggsy felt his touch still, heard the faint intake of breath, and then he leaned down and kissed Eggsy, fierce and possessive and loving and gentle. “Roll over,” he said.

Eggsy obeyed, flipping himself over onto his stomach and planting his knees into the mattress, exposing the curve of his arse. The pillow was soft against his cheek, the covers silk against his knees. He heard Harry slicking himself up – fingers and cock both – and tightened his grip on the fabric of the sheets, forcing himself to breathe. He felt Harry lean over him and kiss his shoulder, the arch of his back; Harry’s limbs trembled as he held himself over him. Harry nipped his ear and Eggsy shuddered, gasping into the pillow as Harry slipped two fingers between his cheeks to press teasingly at his hole.

 _I want you_. Eggsy whined, pressing back against his touch. Harry teased him, running his fingers over his puckered rim until Eggsy couldn’t help but squirm under him, and then Harry edged the tip of one finger through his rim and pushed in. Eggsy let out a sharp breath at the unfamiliar intrusion, his hands tightening into fists, his body stilling.

“Alright?” Harry murmured.

“Yes,” Eggsy gasped, and he felt breathless and shaky but filled with _want_ , needing to feel Harry inside of him, needing to let someone take control of his body and wanting Harry to be the one to do it. Harry twisted his finger around gently inside of him, finding the small bump that was his prostate. Harry crooked his finger slightly to rub over it and Eggsy gasped, biting out a curse, as pleasure shot through him like an electric shock. He felt his body jerk involuntarily and clenched down around Harry, hearing him let out a shuddering breath in response.

Harry was already wrecked, Eggsy knew. He twisted around to see him and let out a broken moan at the sight, at Harry’s other hand on his cock, stroking it, head tilted back in pleasure. His eyes were hooded, his cheeks flushed and his lips red and shiny with spit. He was stroking in time with his finger in Eggsy’s arse, pushing in and out over Eggsy’s prostate as he thrusted gently into his own hand.

Eggsy felt Harry circling a second finger around his hole, pressing lightly, easing its way inside. His breath caught in his throat at the intrusion, his body tensing, and Harry paused.

“No,” Eggsy gasped out, shaking his head. His body was trembling slightly and he felt the burn of the unfamiliar stretch, but it was Harry, and Eggsy wanted him. “I’m fine, keep going.”

Harry obliged, moving his fingers in and out slowly, his knuckles catching slightly on Eggsy’s rim. Eggsy felt him scissor his fingers, felt the care he was taking not to move to quickly, and the pads of his fingers grazed Eggsy’s prostate on every stroke. Eggsy let out a broken gasp, pleasure riding through him in waves to drown out the pain of the stretch. He fisted his hands in the sheets, grasping at them desperately, knees digging into the mattress and toes curling against the covers.

Harry crooked his fingers, stroking his prostate, and a low moan escaped Eggsy’s throat. He shifted his hips backwards to meet Harry on every thrust, the muscles in his shoulders and back flexing to keep his back arched, keep himself exposed for Harry. He felt Harry running the flat of his hand up his sides, slipping around to his chest, stroking down to his stomach and lower to grasp at his cock.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Eggsy moaned as Harry began stroking slowly, dragging his thumb over the head of his cock, slicking it with precum. Harry lined a third finger up against his hole and pushed in gently; the sting was immediate and Eggsy let a whimper escape his throat, feeling his entire body tighten involuntarily against the pain. Harry leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to his shoulder, his lips soft and soothing, the heat of his body against Eggsy’s back radiating through him.

“You’re doing lovely, Eggsy, you’re doing so well,” Harry murmured, as he began moving his fingers in and out of Eggsy’s arse, fucking him with his hand. Eggsy pressed back against him, feeling Harry’s hand on his cock and focusing on the pleasure it brought. “That’s it, just breathe.”

 _Breathe_. Eggsy inhaled shakily, the same breath leaving him in a whimper as Harry stroked his prostate; his cock jumped in Harry’s hand, already painfully hard with the pleasure thrumming through him despite the sting. Harry let out a soft moan, stroking his prostate a little harder, and the pleasure suddenly surged; Eggsy’s voice rose in a wail.

“Is that good, love?” Harry asked breathlessly, leaning down and kissing the base of Eggsy’s neck, dipping his tongue into the valley between his shoulder blades.

“Yes,” Eggsy choked out, and it sounded like a sob. Harry was here, taking him, chipping away at his control, and it felt _amazing._ “Yes, you’re so good, Harry –”

Harry bit down on Eggsy’s shoulder. Eggsy gasped, his body jerking, and Harry began twisting and rotating his fingers inside Eggsy’s arse. Eggsy let out a low moan, and Harry’s tongue darted out to taste his back again, licking down his spine in one smooth line, leaving his skin cold and prickling in its wake. He shivered, goosebumps rising on his skin, and Harry flattened his tongue out at the base of Eggsy’s spine. He nipped at the thick cords of muscle, kissed the two shallow depressions on Eggsy’s lower back on either side of his spine.

“I can take it,” Eggsy gasped. “C’mon, Harry, I need you, I want to feel you –”

“Shh, love, I’ve got you,” Harry said softly. He drew his fingers out and Eggsy shuddered at the sudden emptiness, pressing back against Harry as he positioned the head of his cock against Eggsy’s entrance. He pushed in slowly, gently, but he was _big_ , thick and hot and heavy, and Eggsy couldn’t help his sharp intake of breath, couldn’t help the seizing of his muscles, until Harry was finally seated fully inside.

It was almost overwhelming. Eggsy’s breaths were shallow and fluttering in his chest as he panted into the pillow, clutching at the sheets as if they would be able to ground him from the pleasure throbbing through his body and the burning sting of his arse around Harry’s cock. He heard Harry’s breathing; deep, shuddering, wrecked, and he clenched down reflexively. Harry let out a soft moan, leaning over and burying his face in Eggsy’s shoulder, enveloping Eggsy in his heat even as Eggsy held him in his. He felt Harry’s lips against his skin and twisted around to meet him; Harry was just tall enough to reach his mouth and he kissed him, wet and sloppy, breath hot and harsh.

Harry began to thrust slowly, the pace easy and gentle. He drew out and pressed back in, letting out a shuddered moan, and his cock slid past Eggsy’s prostate. Eggsy let out a cry, muffled by Harry’s lips, his body jerking with the sudden wave of pleasure that pounded through him. His limbs shook with overstimulation, trying to thrust back with his hips to take Harry deeper, clenching down until he felt the trembling in Harry’s body and the unevenness of his breaths as he tried to stay in control.

“You’re so good, Eggsy, so good,” Harry panted, planting wet, open-mouthed kisses on Eggsy’s back, shoulders, neck. Eggsy’s breaths were leaving him in sharp, desperate pants with every thrust and Harry reached around and grasped his length again, lunged up until their bodies were pressed flush against each other so he could bite at Eggsy’s ear, and Eggsy keened.

Harry’s mouth slipped back onto Eggsy’s shoulders, kissing and biting until Eggsy knew there were red marks covering his pale skin, until he knew Harry had rewritten the scars on his back with the sweetness of his lips. Harry let go of his cock and raked his fingers through Eggsy’s hair, tugging gently at the base of his skull until Eggsy cried out and clenched down around Harry’s length. Harry let out a strangled moan, his rhythm stuttering, his fingers tightening in Eggsy’s hair.

Harry leaned down and pressed his chest flush against Eggsy’s back. The heat of his body seared Eggsy’s skin, warmth racing through him as pleasure pounded through Eggsy’s body and drove him closer and closer towards the edge. The sweat of their bodies made their skin slick and Eggsy felt the slide of his skin against Harry’s with every one of Harry’s thrusts, felt the slight rasp of the hair on Harry’s chest against his back. Harry reached back around to Eggsy’s belly, running his hands over the tight, hot skin, brushing his fingertips teasingly against Eggsy’s aching cock, skimming over hypersensitive nipples and pinching them between forefinger and thumb.

“Fuck, Harry,” Eggsy choked out as Harry rubbed over his left pectoral, squeezing his nipple and tugging gently as he reached down with his other hand and grasped Eggsy’s cock. Eggsy’s body was shaking, his limbs trembling with exertion and hyperstimulation, his lower belly tightening, and he knew he was close. He knew Harry felt it; Harry heightened the pace and ferocity with which he drove into Eggsy’s body, tilting his hips so the sensitive head of his cock slicked over Eggsy’s prostate with every thrust, and Eggsy practically sobbed.

“You’re so good, Eggsy,” Harry bit out, and he sounded wrecked. Eggsy glanced behind him, saw his perfectly styled hair loose and falling forward into his eyes, saw the sheen of sweat on his skin, bringing out the muscles in his shoulders and chest, the tendons in his neck, the sharp cut of his jaw. His lips were parted, pupils blown and eyes glazed, and the look of him with his composure so utterly destroyed nearly brought Eggsy over the edge.

“Please, Harry,” Eggsy gasped, and Harry began to pump his cock faster, letting his thumb catch at Eggsy’s head with each desperate stroke. Eggsy’s voice rose into a wail, his lower belly clenching as orgasm rushed towards him. Harry kept the pace up, merciless but struggling for control, and his cock was hitting Eggsy’s prostate with every thrust, and Eggsy knew he couldn’t last much longer. Then Harry leaned down and sank his teeth into Eggsy’s neck, and that was it.

His voice rose in a cry of Harry’s name, broken, wrecked, utterly shattered as he came in violent spurts over Harry’s hand. His limbs shook, his balls drawing up into his body as orgasm overcame him, sending waves of pleasure rushing through his body. Harry spilled into him a moment later with Eggsy’s name on his lips, his own body trembling.

Eggsy collapsed under him, utterly spent, tremors of aftershocks shaking his body. His chest was heaving, his breaths still hard and fast, and he barely noticed Harry’s weight on top of him.

“Shit,” Harry whispered after a few moments. He sounded dazed.

“Shit’s right,” Eggsy mumbled, still breathless. He felt Harry pull out, as slowly and gently as he could, but it stung a little nevertheless and he couldn’t hold back a wince.

“Sorry,” Harry murmured. He tied off the condom and tossed it into the bin.

Eggsy shook his head. “S’alright,” he said, rolling over onto his back and pulling Harry down against him. “I love you,” he whispered, tilting his head to graze his teeth against Harry’s ear. Harry hummed and pressed a light kiss against the pulse in Eggsy’s neck, his lips lingering, his breath puffing soft and cool against Eggsy’s skin.

They lay there for another few moments, limbs tangled together, their hearts beating a staccato against each other’s chests and their breaths mingling between them. He was content, Eggsy realized. So perfectly content to just lie here forever with Harry, to let himself love him and be loved, and he never wanted the feeling to end.

“We should shower,” Harry said presently, pushing himself up onto his elbows. Their skin, previously slick with sweat, now felt sticky; the hot water of a shower was tempting.

Eggsy leaned up and caught Harry’s lips with his own; it was as if a barrier between them had broken, and he didn’t seem to be able to kiss him enough. He felt the rumble of a laugh in Harry’s chest, heard it like music in his ears, and couldn’t stop a gentle smile from spreading itself across his face.

“Yeah,” he murmured when they parted. He let Harry stand and pull him to his feet, leaning into the curve of his body as they headed to the bathroom. His shoulder fit neatly under Harry’s arm, Harry’s shoulder fit neatly under his chin, and he felt Harry’s arm slip behind him to wrap around his waist to hold him close. It wasn’t necessary, really, the level of closeness between them in the short walk across the hall, but it was comforting, and if there wasn’t a reason not to – well, then, why not?

Harry’s hands never left his body once. Fingertips on Eggsy’s wrist as he adjusted the temperature of the water, running along Eggsy’s ribs as they stepped into the shower, all over Eggsy’s body as they soaped each other down.

His lips were on Eggsy’s skin too; light, brushing touches along Eggsy’s cheeks, sucking gentle marks onto his throat and collarbones, around his cock as he hardened again, where they remained faithfully and delightfully until Eggsy felt the tightening deep in his gut and spilled his seed into Harry’s throat.

 

 

 

Later, after they’d changed the sheets, Eggsy ran his fingers through Harry’s hair as sleep pulled at his eyelids; the silky brown was almost dry already, even though they hadn’t showered long ago, and was soft as down against his skin. Harry seemed to melt under his touch, and the thought sent warmth flooding through Eggsy’s chest. At their feet, JB, who had kindly and prudently stayed out of the room until after they had also showered and changed the sheets, snuffled in his sleep and twitched, as if he were running.

“I wonder what he’s dreaming about,” Harry mumbled. His voice was slurred and sleepy.

“I dunno.” Eggsy’s thumb stroked small circles against Harry’s ribs as he closed his eyes. “Maybe he’s chasin’ a squirrel or a pigeon or something.”

“Quite an active dream for such a lazy dog,” Harry slurred, already half-asleep.

Eggsy laughed softly. “I guess they say ‘dream big’ for a reason.”

Harry hummed and shifted closer to him; his arm was wrapped tightly around Eggsy, its weight resting comfortably over his chest, and his head nestled neatly against Eggsy’s shoulder. He’d been more cuddly than Eggsy had expected, now that the physical barrier between them was broken and both of them felt free to touch and feel and explore. Harry was still careful, of course, asking if it was alright before everything he did.

It always was. Eggsy loved him, and he trusted him.

It was wonderful.

They were asleep, tangled together, less than ten minutes later.

 

 

 

**Two years later, July 2020**

 

Things got better. There were still the occasional arguments, and there were still the occasional bad days or weeks or months, whether for one of them or for both of them at once; Eggsy couldn’t pretend that everything was perfect.

But it didn’t have to be. That wasn’t the point. It just had to be better, and that was what it was.

Harry was still asleep when Eggsy woke one next morning in July; a gray and cloudy dawn with raindrops pattering on the windowsill. It was rare now that Eggsy woke earlier than Harry did, and Eggsy was content to watch him, to stare at the gentle fluttering of his lashes, the dust of pink on his cheeks, the soft curve of his mouth. The lines on his face weren’t quite so deep at six-thirty-three in the morning, the few streaks of gray in his hair not quite so pronounced.

Harry woke twenty-seven minutes later to the beeping of the alarm, his eyes flickering open to reveal a deep, warm coffee. They seemed to glow, even in the hazy light of a rainy day. His mouth shifted into a smile, which Eggsy found that he couldn’t help but reciprocate.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of waking next to you,” Harry murmured. He reached out, and Eggsy wiggled in closer to him, curling around his body. He breathed in deep, letting Harry’s scent fill his lungs, letting the warmth of Harry’s arm draped over him seep into his bones.

“And I could stay here all day,” Eggsy mumbled.

Harry huffed a laugh; Eggsy felt the movement of his chest and the puff of his breath. “As could I. And perhaps in four days, we will, but it’s Tuesday, and unfortunately I still need to go to work.”

A small smile pulled at Eggsy’s cheeks. “The world always needs savin’, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Hm. Shame.” Eggsy sighed and sat up, bringing Harry with him. He leaned in for a kiss; it was easy now, to be affectionate, when a few years ago Harry would have been hard-pressed to get even a hug at the end of a long day. It made Harry happy; Eggsy could see it in the brightness of his eyes, in the flush of his cheeks.

Harry was the first to break the kiss, pushing lightly against Eggsy’s chest. “Speaking of work,” he said, and he reached up to brush his hair out of his eyes; it was still mussed with sleep. “There’s something that I think – rather, I _hope_ – you will find exciting. Kingsman has ah, made some decisions recently. Or, rather, _I_ proposed a decision, which was then accepted by a majority.”

“Oh?” Eggsy sat back and raised an eyebrow. Beside him, JB snorted in his sleep and snuggled closer against his hip.

“I confess I have kept something from you for some time,” Harry began. “Nothing bad, of course.” He reached forwards, grasping Eggsy’s hands lightly in his own. Eggsy could feel the faintest tremor in his touch, and he knew Harry well enough by now to know it was the excitement of anticipation. “You know that I am now Arthur, yes? And you know that when I was promoted to Arthur, I initially thought we would be looking for recruits to fill the now-empty title of Galahad.”

Eggsy nodded, slowly. “Yeah. Why, did you not end up doin’ that?”

“No, we did look for recruits. We did each put someone forward – even me, though I couldn’t find anyone I was quite satisfied enough with.” A small smile spread itself across Harry’s face, his grip on Eggsy’s hands tightened. “But for various reasons, the whole recruiting process didn’t quite work out. This is a big awkward, really, but…you see, none of the recruits actually, ah, made it past the train test.”

“None?” Eggsy blinked.

Harry shrugged; a motion he’d picked up from Eggsy. He shrugged more often now instead of just shaking his head like the formal, put-together wanker he was. “None. Quite embarrassing, really, the quality of the individuals who were selected. Including mine – a girl, Oxford-educated, quite the athletic record even though she decided not to pursue anything professionally. Perfect on paper, quite the opposite in person. Unlike my first two candidates,” Harry said, leaning forward and bumping his forehead lightly against Eggsy’s. “You and your father both. So, it ends up that we have not had a Galahad for two years, despite our efforts. We have not even had a _promising_ candidate until recently, when I proposed someone who had, in fact, passed all but the last test, and who has, despite his initial inability to shoot his dog, demonstrated an unparalleled loyalty and courage, and strength in the face of – well, quite frankly, everything.” He paused, taking a deep breath, and suddenly seemed very nervous. “I proposed you.”

_Me._

Shock, bewilderment. It took a while for it to register in Eggsy’s mind. _Harry proposed me for Galahad._

“Me?” he said, finally, after an eternity had passed.

“Yes,” Harry said. “And it was an overwhelming majority who agreed.” His voice softened. “I suppose…I suppose after learning of what you had done to take down Ross, there could not have been any doubt as to your quality.”

 _After learning that I was willing to die for you. That I’m_ still _willing to die for you._

Eggsy took a few long, deep breaths.

“It’s a…second chance, I suppose,” Harry continued, with a small, uncertain, hopeful smile. “If you want it. I realize that it’s a lot to put upon you in the early hours of the morning,” he added quickly. “And I understand if you don’t. There will be fighting involved, and killing, of course, but the position is yours if you want it.”

Eggsy blinked, still stunned. “I… _Kingsman_?”

Amusement curved the corners of Harry’s lips, wrinkled the skin around his eyes. “Yes, love. Kingsman.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A second chance at Kingsman, even after everything…

He’d gotten better, to the point where Harry had taken him to a shooting range upon his own request and he’d been able to hold his gun steady, to hit the target with the same accuracy he’d had before, and to feel calm about it. Things had gone back to normal, for the most part, and more days than not – most days, in fact – he’d been able to truthfully say that he was alright.

But that didn’t erase the things he’d done. No matter how much he wanted to fix them, it didn’t negate the mistakes he’d made, the terrible things he’d been forced to do (here, if Harry had heard his thoughts, he would smile and point out with a quiet pride that Eggsy had said ‘had been forced to do’ instead of simply ‘had done,’ reminding him that he was healing, that he was forgiving himself, that he was recognizing that it hadn’t been his fault). And for Kingsman to still offer him one of its most esteemed positions, even after all of that, for _Harry_ to have proposed him, was a generosity and trust and faith on a level that was hard to take in.

And for Harry –

Harry had been terrified of losing him, Eggsy remembered. When Eggsy had first come back to him, they both could barely go a day without reassuring each other that they were there, that they were alright. It had been an essential part of the day for Harry to see him and to know that he was safe.

But if Harry had proposed him now, if Harry was willing to let him be – no, if Harry _wanted_ him to be – a Kingsman again, for him to go on missions, maybe it meant that Harry was healing too. He still cared, of course, and wanted Eggsy safe, but maybe he was getting over the trauma and the irrational fear that Eggsy would get hurt as soon as he was out of sight.

Roxy had been right, when she’d said that they both stood a better chance of healing if they were together.

“But…but…relationships,” Eggsy said, despite himself, because even if they were both getting better, even if they both wanted it, surely Kingsman still followed its own old rules?

“I’m Arthur, I make the rules now,” Harry said with a smile, leaning in and pecking a kiss on Eggsy’s nose. “And I say that relationships are still not _technically_ allowed and are generally discouraged on principle, but I’m willing to make an exception just this once – just as we did for your father. Who knows, perhaps it’ll set a more tolerant precedent for agents to come.”

Still, Eggsy couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around the idea that Kingsman wanted him – _him_ – to join their ranks as the new Galahad. The new _Harry_. God, was that a big role to fill. “Me,” he said aloud. “Why me? After everythin’ that I did – you still want _me_?”

Harry shrugged, still smiling. “You know almost everything about Kingsman already, and you completed all of the training in the candidate selection process. You were effectively a third field agent in the mission to take down Ross. Your loyalty is unparalleled, and we have fair reason to believe it’s to me.” He chuckled. “The only thing that’s preventing you from operating as fully a Kingsman agent is the fact that we haven’t granted you biometric access to anything, which would be immediately remedied should you decide to accept the position. And I understand if you need some time to consider, or if you don’t want it at all – I know it might be too much to ask and that you might not want anything to do with it. But if you do…”

“If I… _yes_ , Harry,” Eggsy whispered, and he felt the fluttering of hope in his chest. _A second chance._ “Yes, Harry, of course I want it.”

Harry’s smile widened, and it was like sunlight reaching out from behind clouds. “In that case, you start tomorrow,” he murmured. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Eggsy’s, and Eggsy kissed him back, and summer rain spilled on the windowsill like music around them.

 

 

 

The next morning, Eggsy put on his bespoke suit for the first time in nearly four years. The first time since he’d worn it to take down Ross. He paused by the door as he and Harry went to leave; it felt strange, after having done the same thing for so long, to suddenly be doing something different. To be walking out the door with Harry, instead of waiting behind as he had always done before. To be going back to Kingsman, not as prisoner, but as one of them. To be walking out into the world he was going to help save, instead of just seeing something he had once helped try to destroy.

In front of him, beyond the reinforced glass by the front door, the trees glittered in the wind, leaves flickering and flashing like the wings of a thousand green butterflies taking flight.

“Ready?” Harry asked, standing quietly beside him. Not rushing him. Harry never rushed him.

“Yeah.” Eggsy swallowed. “I promise I’ll be safe,” he said, even though it was his first day and nothing dangerous would happen. Logistics, mostly, and getting his biological print into the systems.

A gentle kiss, pressed against Eggsy’s temple, and a hand at the small of his back. A soft voice in his ear. “I promise I’ll come home tonight.”

Eggsy took a deep breath. His heart fluttered in his chest, partly with nerves, partly with excitement. The trauma wasn’t gone, no; far from it. He still had a long way to go in terms of healing, and he didn’t know if the trauma ever would be truly gone. But it was better. He was better. Harry was better. In time, perhaps, he could hope that it would be just another memory.

His hand found Harry’s. _I love you_ , he tapped on Harry’s wrist. And out loud –

“I promise we’ll be okay.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of it! Thank you for reading everyone, it's been a journey writing this fic. Hope y'all enjoyed.


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